It is morning, even though the sun has not yet lit the sky. That is how a lot of the world understands our Lord Jesus. His hour has come, and His glory revealed in the heavens and on the earth. It is morning, even though the light has not yet reached into the hearts of all of God’s children. This morning the Spirit had me read John 4:7, “A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give Me a drink.’” I questioned the Spirit, “What can I give to the Lord?” What is the water He is seeking from me?” The Lord’s food is to do the will of the Father, but He asked for a drink. Jesus had nothing to draw with from the well. The woman’s heart was not yet open to the light who had come to wait for her by the well. Jesus spoke with her, and her heart opened. The scriptures do not tell us if the woman ever gave Jesus a drink from the well of Jacob, but only from the well of her heart that Jesus had opened.

So many people do not see the light of Jesus. People have testified to me that they have tried Jesus, when what they mean is “they” have tried but not allowed Jesus. Each of them have a story of how someone hurt them and tried to oppress them in the Lord’s name. In the prison system, prisoners are sometimes moved from one prison to another. They are still prisoners, just in another place. They have a different task master, who is not the Lord. That is how many seeking people feel; they move from place to place but nothing changes except the one oppressing them. The fact is the one oppressing them does not change, because he is not flesh and blood. But God has promised if we seek we will find.

Morning is here, and the sun will soon shine on the earth. Jesus is coming to seek His own, and all who are the Father’s are His. To prepare, there is coming an out pouring of the fruit of the Holy Spirit, LOVE! Love is a fire and fire produces a light. The fire is springing up everywhere, and that which is not already fire will be consumed or tormented by the fire. Those seeking will find, and the physical things that hold them down will be consumed. That which will not be changed by the fire will be in torment.

The Lord has shown me something, some may say there is no proof in the scriptures, but I will share it anyway. When a crowd of people were stoning Stephen, the Lord stood. “… full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55). Jesus got up off the mercy seat and stood as Stephen was being killed. Stephen prayed that God would not charge them with the sin. The love of God in Stephen gave something to Jesus; a plea for those who persecuted him. The sin of Stephen’s death was not laid at the feet of Saul (who is Paul). Jesus was not on the mercy seat as He watched one of His own being killed; but the light Jesus brought into the world, God’s love, was in Stephen. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends (John 15:13). Stephen laid down his life for those who killed him. At that very moment, the seed of love was planted into the heart of one named Saul. The sun had not yet brought light into his heart, but Paul was planted into Saul by Stephen (a seed willing to die).

The answer to the question, “What can I give to the Lord,” is everything. The person we see as lost (a Saul) God may see as a Paul, and our work in the Lord may be to be a witness of God’s love – a seed – the light – in their life. As I finish writing this, the sun has turned the sky into light; it is no longer darkness. The light of the world is Jesus, sent out of God’s love for the lost. While He is in the world He is the light of the world. The believer is how Jesus is in the world – we have to become the light, as Stephen did, to the lost. The Holy Spirit is here, on the earth, to produce the love of God in the believer – to make us light, as Jesus was light. Love one another as I have loved you, is the message of the Christ. Morning is here!

© 2010, Tim D. Coulter Sr.