by J. C. Ryle
The woman left her water jar beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, "Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Messiah?" John 4:28-29
She had left her home for the express purpose of drawing water. She had carried a large vessel to the well, intending to bring it back filled.
But she found at the well a new heart, and new objects of interest.
She became a new creature!
Old things passed away!
All things became new!
At once everything else was forgotten for the time. She could think of nothing but the truths she had heard, and the Savior she had found. In the fullness of her heart she "left her water jar," and hastened away to tell others.
We see here the expulsive power of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Grace once introduced into the heart drives out old tastes and interests. A converted person no longs cares for what he once cared for!
A new tenant is in the house!
A new pilot is at the helm!
The whole world looks different!
All things have become new!
Conduct like that here described is doubtless uncommon in the present day. Rarely do we see a person so entirely taken up with spiritual matters, that attention to this world's affairs is made a secondary matter, or postponed.
And why is it so?
Simply because true conversions to God are uncommon. Few really feel their sins, and flee to Christ by faith. Few really pass from death to life, and become new creatures.
Yet these few are the real Christians of the world.
What are we ourselves? This is the question, after all, which demands our notice. Do we feel the supreme importance of spiritual things, and the comparative nothingness of the things of the world?
Where is the reality of OUR Christianity?
Let us take heed lest we awake too late, and find that we are lost forever, a wonder to angels and devils, and, above all, a wonder to ourselves, because of our own obstinate blindness and folly.
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Excerpt from Expository Thoughts on the Gospels by J. C. Ryle