Pseudo-Saviors - Martin Wiles

For you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. John 4:18 NLT

He was a famous tennis champion, and she was a well-known actor, but neither was satisfied.

Boris Becker, the tennis champion said, “I had won Wimbledon twice, once as the youngest player. I was rich …. I had all the material possessions I needed …. but I had no inner peace.”

Sophia Loren earned the Academy Award for Best Actress, six David di Donatello Awards, a Grammy Award, five Golden Globes, a BAFTA Award, a Laurel Award, the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival, the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Honorary Academy Award in 1991. In 1995, she received the Cecil B. DeMille Award. Yet, in one of her famous interviews, she said, “In my life there is an emptiness that is impossible to fulfill.”

The woman Jesus encountered at the well felt this emptiness. When Jesus offered her living water, she eagerly accepted. If such water existed that would quench her thirst forever so she wouldn’t have to keep coming to the well, she wanted it. But she also pursued empty relationships. She had gone through five husbands and wasn’t married to the man she currently lived with.

Pseudo-saviors are things—or people—that promise what they can’t deliver. Or perhaps they are innocent bystanders who someone else has told us about. “Try this. It will bring you the happiness you’re searching for.”

I’ve run after a few of them. In my teenage years, I pursued acceptance. I wanted others my age to like me—and did whatever it took to make them. The trouble was, some still didn’t like me, and now I had not only rejection but also an addiction.

Like the woman at the well, I’ve also gone through a few relationships that ended in a dead-end. I thought they’d bring happiness, but they didn’t because I constructed them on a bad foundation.

Finances, possessions, relationships, substances, sex, fame. Perhaps none of them are sinful in and of themselves, but when sought after at the expense of God, they lead to emptiness—just as they did for Boris Becker and Sophia Loren.

Jesus was the only One who could save the woman at the well from her emptiness, and He is still the only One who can give meaning to life. Anything pursued without Him will disappoint us.

Seek Jesus with your entire being, and life will take on a new meaning.

Prayer: Father, above all else, may we seek a vibrant relationship with You.

Tweetable: Are you running after pseudo-Saviors? 

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