Living Water (from John 4)
I learned that the Pharisees were told that I was winning and baptizing more followers than John the Baptizer. Although I didn’t actually baptize, My disciples did it, so I left Judea to go home. When I left Jerusalem, I surprisingly went home through Samaria, because the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. When I came near Sychar, I sat on Jacob’s well because I was worn out from the hot journey, and it was noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well. I was sitting there and said, “Give Me a drink.” The disciples had gone into the town to get food.
She was surprised that a Jew would ask because the Jews despised the Samaritans. She said, “Why would You, a Jew, ask water from me, a Samaritan?” I said, “If you only knew God’s gift and who it is that offers you water, you would have asked Me for a drink, and I would have given you living water.”The woman replied, “You don’t have a bucket; how could You get water from this deep well?” She continued, “Are You greater than Jacob who drank from it with his?”
I answered, “Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I give will never be thirsty again. The water I give will be an artesian well inside them that gushes up into eternal life.”
The woman said, “Give me some of that water so I will never get thirsty again, and have to come to this well for water.”
I abruptly said, “Go call your husband!” She answered, “I have no husband.”I replied, “You have correctly answered because you have had five hus- bands, and now you’re not married to the one you’re living with.”
She exclaimed, “You must be a prophet to know this.” Then she argued, “Our fathers worshiped here. The Jews say Jerusalem is the place to worship.” I interrupted to say, “The hour is coming when no one will worship on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You don’t know whom you worship, but the Jews know whom they worship. In fact, the hour is already here when true worshipers will worship My Father in Spirit and truth. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in their hearts and truthfully.”
The woman said, “I know that Messiah is coming; He will tell us everything when He comes.”I answered, “I am He.”
Then My disciples came and saw that I talked with a woman. “Why are You talking with her?”
The woman left her water pot and hurried off to tell the men in the village, “Come see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done.” She asked, “Could this man be the Messiah?” They left the town to meet Me.
Meanwhile, the disciples told Me to eat, but I said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.” The disciples thought someone else had brought Me food. I said, “My food is doing the will of My Father and completing His work. People say, ‘Harvest comes four months after planting,’ But I say, ‘Look around at the fields, they are already ripe for harvest.’ Everything is ready for the reaper to go to work to bring in the ‘grain’ of eternal life; then the sower and reaper will rejoice together.” Then I explained, “One sows, and another reaps. I send you to reap where you didn’t sow, and you get rewards for their effort.”
Many Samaritans believed in Me because the woman said, “Come see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done.” The Samaritans begged Me to stay with them, and I stayed two days, and many got saved.The Samaritan men told the woman, “Now we believe because of what we have heard for ourselves, not just because of what you said.”