A Gift That Changes Everything

PASSAGE FOR THE DAY:

1 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 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.)

10 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.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

15 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.”

16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 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.”

19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

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?”

28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. 36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.

42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” (John 4:1-42, NIV)

REFLECTIONS:

If you knew the gift of God… Jesus says to the woman who knows her sin, who lives in shame… If you knew the gift of God and if you knew me, you would have asked me and I would have given you more than you could ever imagine.  Water that will flow over your dry, lonely, thirsty-for-love heart and so soothe, heal and satisfy it that you will be changed forever.  If you were to ask me for this water, I would not only give you enough for you, but I would make you a spring of this kind of water so that through you other dry, lonely, thirsty-for-love hearts would be soothed, healed, satisfied. 

The remainder of the conversation includes Jesus revealing that he knows all her “stuff” and yet his love offer remains.  He also says that worship has to actually engage your spirit and be utterly authentic for it to be the kind of worship God wants. (I think He may have included this vital tidbit about worship here because often, we encounter the love of Jesus when we are worshipping God in spirit and in truth).

The woman, after encountering Jesus for real, after receiving his gracious, loving, knowing-but non-judgmental, compassionate presence, immediately runs back to her friends to share with them what has happened.  When you really encounter Jesus, it rocks you in the best sort of way and you just can’t help telling other people about him.  You just want other people to get to know, like you have, how wonderfully he has loved you even while fully knowing you.  She tells everybody about her encounter.  This leads to their encounter with Jesus and they all experience Him and know that he is their Savior.  He’s just that good.   

One of the High School students who went to the YWAM Infusion camp in LA last week told me, with the sweetest joy I have ever seen out of this kid, that he actually encountered the love of Jesus.  That he “knew” (intellectually) that God loved him before that, but everything has changed since this encounter. He went on to the streets of Hollywood, where he poured out the living water given to him on some others who were much in need of a drink.

POINT TO PONDER:

If you aren’t sure you have actually tasted of water this good, just ask him.  It’s a gift. 

WHO AM I?

I’m Lisa Kirby.  A friend of mine sent me this prophetic photo of a girl offering a glass of water at a time when the Holy Spirit had contemporaneously given me a dream of people lying on their bellies trying to satisfy thirst in dry, gravelly holes that had previously contained some sort of dirty water.  Just behind them (us actually), was a well of the clearest, freshest water imaginable.  We just had to stop trying to quench our thirst in places that could never satisfy.  We had only to stand up and turn around.  It was right there.  If we only knew the gift of God, if we only knew Jesus.  We would become the girl offering the water that satisfies.