Ministering to Other Women...

I just got done instant messaging with one of my good friends. She and I have been through many ups and downs as friends often go through, not so much together, but in our own seperate lives. She is a newer believer and is a sweetheart who has a heart to follow Christ and I was happy that as I was speaking to her, I felt Christ speaking, not me or my own voice even. I hear Christ. Ministering to other women. We as Christian women are called to do it, but we don't always do it, do we? I know that I haven't always had the mindset to share Christ with others, let alone other women. I have always thought I was too young or too this or that. Well God in his grace and mercy is showing me other wise and is slowly placing women, one by one into my path. I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I always thought that "Oh I would love to teach a bible study," or "Oh I would love to have coffee and a study at my home," never realizing by having conversations like this that I am indeed sharing Christ and his love. When I think about sharing Christ with others I have come to realize we must take people where the are, accept them as they are. I think a perfect example is in the book of John where Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman. As you read this scripture I ask you to reflect on, "What if I accept people as they are, and love them as Jesus loved this woman who was indeed a sinner and someone not of any status? What would happen?" And then go from there! - Blessings, Ashley

(English Standard Version)

John 4:1-28

"Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour when a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." "Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water."
He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back." "I have no husband," she replied.
Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true." "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."
21Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he." Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?" Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,"Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" They came out of the town and made their way toward him."