John 4
Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman
1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John—The Disciples Rejoin Jesus
27 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?”Here is the transcript text from the attached video file, already time-stamped line by line, as requested:
Philippians 3 12-16 says, "Not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me."
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore, let us, as many as are mature, have this mind. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us be of the same mind.
Have you ever seen a master perfumer at work in the earliest hours of the morning before the world stirs? They don't approach flowers to admire them. They approach them to draw out what cannot be seen. The petals are not preserved in their original form. They are placed under heat, pressure, and vapor until the unnecessary dissolves and only the essence remains. Nothing about the process looks gentle.
Yet everything about the outcome is intentional. And as you stand here on the end of the year, it may feel as though the past year has treated you in a similar way. Pressure where you expected ease, heat where you hoped for relief. But what can look like loss from the outside is often refinement in the hands of God. What remains now is not what was broken, but what was preserved. And God is inviting you to move forward carrying only what still has purpose.
There is something holy about this moment because it is not loud. It is not announcing itself with fireworks or finality. It is a quiet crossing, a sacred pause between what has been and what is about to unfold. God does not rush these moments. He does not pull you forward abruptly. He steadies you first. He reminds you who he is. He reminds you who you are to him before he speaks about what is new.
He speaks about what is secure. Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. This is not a transition driven by urgency. It is one anchored in belonging. What makes transitions difficult is not the future. It is what we are still holding. Memories that ache. Responsibilities that expired. Identities that once helped us survive but now weigh us down. God's instruction in Isaiah is not harsh. It is protective.
Isaiah 43 18-19 says, "Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."
Not because they were meaningless, but because they are no longer meant to lead you. God does not erase the past. He gently frees you from living out of it. What he is preparing ahead cannot be built on soil crowded with remains that no longer carry life. And so before the way appears in the wilderness, before rivers break through dry places, before the new thing becomes visible, God begins here by inviting you to loosen your grip.
Not everything, not all at once, but specifically what he has already finished. Because following him has always required discernment about what to carry forward and what must stay behind. And that discernment begins with this quiet truth. Some things belong to yesterday. Not because they failed, but because their assignment is complete.
My brothers and sisters, as God is moving you forward, he begins by lifting what has been weighing your spirit down. In Matthew 8:22, Jesus words carry a sharp mercy. "Follow me and let the dead bury their dead." This is not coldness. It is clarity. It is heaven's way of drawing a line between what is living and what has already finished its assignment.
There are commitments, emotional attachments and unfinished burdens that once demanded your attention. But they no longer carry God's breath. Yet the heart can linger in old places simply because they are familiar. This morning Jesus is not diminishing what mattered. He is protecting what's next. He is calling your focus back to himself because the future he has prepared requires an undivided heart.
There is a quiet kind of courage that forms when you stop tending endings and start responding to direction. Many people spend the final hours of a year trying to polish what has already expired, reworking outcomes, revisiting conversations, rehearsing what should have happened, carrying responsibility for things that no longer move. But Ecclesiastes 3:1 gives permission to move on without guilt. "To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven."
That means some things were for a season, not forever. Some doors closed because their purpose was completed. Some ideas ran their course. Some versions of you were built for survival, not for the promise ahead. When Jesus speaks like this, he is not removing compassion. He is correcting priority. He is showing you that life cannot expand while you are still investing attention into what no longer carries fruit.
And here is where peace settles over your steps. Walking forward from what is finished is not rejection. It is alignment with God's motion. You are not dishonoring yesterday. You are honoring the shepherd who is guiding you onward. God is not asking for explanations, for one more attempt or for you to keep proving your sincerity by staying stuck. He is simply calling you to follow.
And the moment your heart agrees, something changes. The inner noise quiets, the heaviness loosens, and the path ahead starts to feel possible again. God is moving so your focus can move too. What is truly alive will meet you in 2026. And it will not require you to keep standing in places where God is no longer speaking.
Beloved, leave all the old negatives, labels, and wrong believing. When blind Barnameus heard Jesus calling, something shifted inside him before anything shifted in front of him. Mark 10:50 says, "And he casting away his garment rose and came to Jesus." That detail is not accidental. It is prophetic.
The garment was more than fabric. It was a public identity. It was the thing that explained him to people before he could speak for himself. It signaled limitation, dependence, and "this is all I will ever be." And that is exactly how labels work. They wrap around your story. They cling to your mindset and they train you to expect beggar level outcomes even when heaven is calling you into abundance.
Baremus could not run freely while still wrapped in the proof of his old life. So the moment he heard the voice, he chose movement over familiarity and he stepped toward Jesus unburdened. In the same way, 2025 may have placed garments on you that were never meant to become your identity. Labels like "the one who is overlooked," "the one who always struggles," "the one who never gets chosen," "the one who can't catch a break," "the one who is behind."
Maybe you never said these words out loud, but they settled quietly into your thinking. And for a while, those labels might have felt like protection. Because if you expect less, disappointment hurts less. If you identify as lacking, you stop hoping for overflow. If you keep the cloak on, you can stay seated at the edge of the road and call it safety.
But God is moving. And the moment he calls you forward, what once felt like protection becomes a restriction. This is not a season for small self-definitions. This is not a season for shrinking your expectations to match past experiences. The call of Jesus is not simply to be comforted where you are. It is to rise and come close.
So this is the inner moment of decision. The garment cannot travel with you into a year marked by increase. You cannot step into prosperity while dressing your mind in yesterday's identity. You cannot walk into new provision while wearing old conclusions. What people saw as your limitation is not the headline of your future.
When Bararddameus stood up, he was not pretending he had already received his miracle. He was agreeing with the one who was calling him. And today that same grace is reaching for you. Stand up in your spirit. Step forward in your thinking. Let the old label fall off. Because in 2026, when people look at you, they will not see the fabric of your past trials.
They will see the evidence of God's hand, the steady confidence of someone who knows they belong to the most high, and the quiet radiance of a life that answered the call. My brothers and sisters, leave the water pot and live from effort to abundance flow. John 4:28 says, "The woman then left her water pot and went her way into the city."
That water pot wasn't a random object. It was her routine, her survival system, her daily weight. It represented the way she had learned to keep going, one trip at a time, one heavy carry at a time, one more attempt to satisfy a thirst that always returned. Yet the moment she encountered Jesus, she did not merely receive a comforting conversation. She encountered a new source.
And when the source stood in front of her, the old method no longer made sense. The pot that once felt necessary suddenly felt small, heavy, and unnecessary, not because water didn't matter, but because she had found the one who could satisfy her deeper hunger. In the same way 2025 may have trained you to depend on pots, limited containers of strength and control.
It might look like constant hustle without peace, relentless striving without rest or the pressure of feeling like everything depends on your ability to carry the day. Sometimes the water pot is the habit of overthinking, the need to manage outcomes, the drive to prove yourself, the quiet fear that if you don't push hard enough, nothing will happen.
And it leaves you tired. It leaves you thirsty. It keeps you working, but rarely settles your heart. But God is moving. And part of his movement is shifting you from a life powered by strain into a life carried by his spirit. Jesus is not calling you into laziness. He is calling you into alignment.
Where your effort is no longer anxious, where your work is no longer fueled by fear. And where your heart is no longer burdened by the lie that you must be your own source. So as this year closes, heaven is inviting a holy exchange, the weight of the pot for the wonder of the flow. This is what prosperity looks like in the kingdom.
It is not just having more. It is living from a different supply. When you put down the water pot, you are not denying your responsibility. You are declaring your dependence on God. You are saying "my capacity is not the ceiling of my future." You are trading a container mindset for a river reality.
Stop measuring what God can do by what you can hold. Your energy, your resources, your connections, your strength. The living water does not consult the size of your vessel before it moves. And when you step into 2026 with this faith, you won't just be carrying a plan. You will be carrying a testimony that God's provision is not something you strain to produce, but something you learn to receive as you walk with him.
As you stand at the threshold of 2026, let these three shifts settle into your heart like a quiet blessing. When you step away from what is dead, you step into the new year with clarity, freedom, and an undivided focus because the call is forward. "Follow me and let the dead bury their dead." That word draws a sacred boundary between what has finished its assignment and what God is breathing on now.
It means your strength is no longer spent on what cannot be revived. Your attention is no longer scattered by yesterday and your spirit is no longer tied to places where life is not speaking. What is ahead requires your whole heart and now your whole heart is available. When the garment falls away, 2026 becomes a year of fresh confidence and holy authority.
Because Baremus refused to run toward his miracle wrapped in an old identity. Mark 10:50 says, "And he casting away his garment rose and came to Jesus." The label does not go with you. The limitation does not go with you. The story people told about you does not go with you. And when the water pot is put down, 2026 becomes a year of peaceful provision and steady flow because the Samaritan woman walked away from the weight of her old method.
John 4:28 says, "The woman then left her water pot and went her way into the city." The striving ends here. The anxious carrying ends here. The pressure of being your own source ends here. You enter 2026 lighter. Mind renewed, heart strengthened, steps ordered, ready for life, ready for increase, ready for the new thing God is already bringing to the surface.
Take a quiet moment right now and allow your heart to become still. Wherever you are, place the year ahead into God's loving hands and open your spirit to his peace and leading. Let's pray together and invite him to walk with us into what comes next.
Heavenly Father, I stand before you on this threshold at the very edge of the horizon with my heart wide open and my hands finally unclenched. I begin this moment with the highest praise on my lips because I am still here. I thank you for bringing me to this precise coordinate in time. As I look back over the landscape of 2025, I see the valleys I didn't think I could cross, and the mountains that seemed too steep to climb, yet here I stand.
Not by my own might, but because your steady, faithful hand never let me go. Even when my prayers were just whispers of exhaustion, even when my mind was a storm of why and how, you were the anchor that held in the deep. I acknowledge today that I didn't just survive this year. I was sustained by a king.
Lord, I refuse to cross into 2026 alone. I reject the temptation to drag the heavy rusted chains of yesterday's grief into the pristine halls of tomorrow's promise. I make a quality decision today to walk with Jesus. Not as a distant figure in a book, but as a present, breathing, walking companion.
I want to be so near to you that I can hear your heartbeat, so guided by you that my steps are effortless and so held by you that the opinions of the world lose their power to bruise me. In your presence, my heart is finally finding its rhythm again. I am catching my spiritual breath, realizing that the frantic pace of the world was never meant for a child of God.
Father, I search the corners of my soul and identify the things I have been holding, things that have finished their purpose but have remained in my grip out of habit or fear. I bring the dead things of 2025 into the light of your face. I release the projects that didn't work, the relationships that withered, and the expectations that were never met.
I refuse to keep vigil at a grave where you have already departed. I will not stay tied to what is no longer growing. I choose to follow Jesus forward, even if my emotions are still tender and my heart still feels the sting of the crushing. I trust you enough to step away from the funerals of my past and keep walking toward the gardens of my future.
I declare that if there is no life in it, I will no longer give my strength to it. I am moving toward the new thing that is already springing forth. Lord, I lay at your feet the labels and the beggar's garments that tried to stick to me this year. I strip off the names I never asked for and the identities I wore just to survive the winter.
I repent for believing the lie that I am the one who always struggles, the one who gets overlooked or the one who is destined for disappointment. These are not your words over me. They are the whispers of the enemy. I don't want to enter 2026 dressed in the conclusions of my failures. I want to rise with Jesus and see myself through the mirror of your word.
Replace my heaviness with a garment of praise. Wrap my heart in the dignity of being yours. Let a new holy confidence settle into my bones. Not a pride in my own ability, but a deep unshakable assurance in your sovereignty. I am chosen. I am guarded. I am precious in your sight. I am no longer defined by what I went through, but by the one who brought me out.
And Lord, I set down the heavy cracked water pot of my own self-sufficiency. I am done with the hustle that has no hope and the striving that has no peace. I am tired of the exhausting weight of trying to be my own source, my own protector, and my own provider. Today I admit my total and beautiful dependency on you.
I need your flow. I need your infinite steady supply of wisdom, strength, and joy. Help me to live from the overflow of your presence rather than the vacuum of my own pressure. Help me to work with a rested heart knowing that the battle is already won and the provision is already prepared. I refuse to measure my 2026 by my bank account, my energy levels, or my connections.
I measure it by the limitless riches of Christ Jesus. I don't want to just survive another year. I want to thrive in the luxury of your grace. Jesus, as the clock turns toward 2026, my one desire is to walk close to you. I don't want to walk behind you in the shadows of fear. Nor do I want to run ahead of you in the arrogance of control.
I want to walk beside you in the rhythm of trust. When the path becomes uncertain and the fog of the world rolls in, let me feel the warmth of your hand holding mine. When the thoughts of anxiety try to rise like a flood, quiet them with the authority of your "peace be still." Strengthen me when my confidence feels low and remind me again and again that I belong to the creator of the stars.
Give me the courage to take the step when you say go. Give me the faith to walk through the door when you swing it wide. Even if I don't know what's on the other side. And when the blessings of 2026 begin to pour out as I know they will. Give me the humility to point every eye back to you and the wisdom to steward your goodness for your glory.
I speak total divine peace over my heart right now. I speak peace over my mind, silencing every accusing voice. I speak peace over my home, declaring it a sanctuary of your spirit. I thank you that I am crossing this 48 hour threshold without the baggage of guilt, the stains of shame, or the paralysis of fear.
I am walking with Jesus, and that is my total victory. I am stepping into 2026 lighter, clearer, and steadier than I have ever been. I am moving into a year of prosperity, not because the world is perfect, but because you are faithful. I trust you with the unwritten pages. I follow you into the unknown. I walk with you wholeheartedly today and forever more.
In the mighty and matchless name of Jesus. Amen.
My brothers and sisters, if this prayer lifted your heart today, go ahead and type amen in the comments. Let it be your declaration, your way of saying, "God, I receive every blessing you have for me today." And if you're praying for something specific, don't keep it to yourself. Share your prayer request below.
We're a family here, and your voice matters. We're standing with you, praying with you, and believing that God is already working on your behalf. Feel free to share this devotional prayer with someone you love today. You never know, your simple share could be the very spark that lights up their faith again.
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He's lining up favor, opening new doors, and guiding your steps even when you can't see it yet. So walk with joy, speak with boldness, and rest in the confidence that God is with you every step today. We'll see you again tomorrow right here at Jesus First Ministry. Till then, keep smiling, keep believing, and never stop praising. God bless you abundantly.
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