Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Dear Friends:

Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world” (Jn 4:39-42).:

“I declare that I am personally acquainted with the facts in this statement. I declare these facts to be true of my personal knowledge under penalty of perjury.” These are the statements of a witness testifying by affidavit or what we call in California, a “declaration.”  Such a statement may be used in many legal proceedings.  I have prepared hundreds of these declarations in my career. The key to its effectiveness is the witness’s personal knowledge of the facts.

If a witness gives live testimony in court, he or she is subject to the same personal knowledge requirement. Testimony that depends on something that was said or done when the witness wasn’t present is objectionable on the ground of hearsay because it is no more reliable than gossip. An effective witness has personal knowledge of the facts and communicates them in a truthful manner.

Common sense often tells us when someone is telling the truth. We call it the “smell test.” A communication passes the smell test when the circumstances and knowledge coincide to make sense. Failing the smell test means the facts, as communicated, defy logic or experience and are inconsistent with other evidence.

The Apostle Paul watched victorious legions returning to Rome and found a smell test for Christian witness. The armies would parade their human captives through the streets along with animals and plunder from the exotic lands at the frontiers of the Roman Empire. Some of the captives were destined for life as household slaves. Some were going to die for sport in the Coliseum. Their faces reflected this life and death saga and the tension was palpable as they passed by the cheering citizens. Paul described it this way:

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence (2 Cor. 2:14-17).

Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: Christianity, Devotional, Kent Hansen, word of Grace

Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Dear Friends:

Then the woman left her water jar and went back into the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything that I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he? Then they left the city and were on their way to him (Jn 4:28-30).

“Everything” is known about her and precisely because it has been brought out in the noonday light, it has lost its dark, oppressive grip on her soul. Nothing seems the same. It is as if she has awakened from a coma.

Job emerged from the fog of suffering, doubt and self-absorption and said to God, “Wow! I had heard of you with head knowledge, but now I see you in my heart and it devastates me with a desire for your difference” (Job 42:3-6, my paraphrase). She feels like that.

“This Living Water is great stuff!” She leaves her old water jar behind when she leaves for the city. It had brought her to Jesus, but now she didn’t need it. When you possess the spring, you don’t need the canteen.

“What is this strange feeling, exactly? It’s joy. . . incredible!” She has to tell someone. That is her sudden, overwhelming urge.

The townspeople, especially the women, have held her past against her. This shame has defined her life right down to her everyday trudge out to the well alone.

No more! Forget all that now! The locals wouldn’t speak to her and shunned her with silence. But now she talks to them with a surprising message, “I’ve met a man who told me everything about me like he’s known me all my life–EVERYTHING! Could he be the Messiah?” Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Christianity, Devotional, Kent Hansen, word of Grace

Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Dear Friends:

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” (Jn 4:27).

This is a direct, in-depth conversation between Jesus and the woman. No one else’s fingerprints are on it. Jesus speaks to her with a directness that respects her dignity as a woman and a daughter of God. He knows all about her past, her failed relationships, struggles, loneliness, and “the put-downs” that she endures daily. He honors her intelligence by listening to her and responding with caring honesty.

This is the way that women and men hope it will be with Jesus–a real, intimate relationship in everyday life–not a power contest to dominate or be dominated in the name of virtue. Jesus brought ethical reform to a society and a religious culture that made divorce so easy and advantageous for feckless men that women and children were turned out into the streets in droves, suffering and powerless.

In every encounter with a woman, whether poor or wealthy, married or single, Jew or Gentile, Jesus broke with patriarchal tradition to give righteous respect. In the words of Dorothy Sayers, Jesus “treated women like human beings.”

Since, by Jesus’ own confession, “The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing,” this respect for women originates with God the Father. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Christianity, Devotional, Kent Hansen, word of Grace

Please note that the content and viewpoints of Mr. Hansen are his own and are not necessarily those of the C.S. Lewis Foundation. We have not edited his writing in any substantial way and have permission from him to post his content.

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Dear Friends:

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you don’t know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is not here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth (Jn 4:21-24).

You come to Jesus, attracted by his shining grace, hugged close in his accepting embrace, loved as you have never known love. When you say, “Yes,” you believe that you do so with an open and willing heart. Then he starts peeling you like an onion and everything that you thought you knew, were certain of, believed with all your heart–layer after tightly-wrapped layer of desire, expectation, opinion, defense, scars, fear, guilt, shame, pretense, and the gunk acquired by merely living–is pared away.

Before the Lord Jesus comes to dwell in a human heart, he strips it bare of all the things that have piled up in there and line the walls. He does not seek to make us better, to upgrade our virtues and capacities. He seeks to make us over and if we allow him to get a hand on us, he won’t stop until he has his way with us.

I tell you from intimate experience that this happens. There is nothing as terrifying or thrilling as Christ’s relentless transformation of the human soul. Things that I once accepted with trained thought and good conscience to be the best part of me, he has insisted on throwing out with the rubbish of my worst sins and traits. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Christianity, Devotional, Kent Hansen, word of Grace