Living Water

God is so good. I love how personal and intimate He is, how He speaks to our hearts, and for His perfect timing. This was so evident to me this past week. Last Sunday at church, we looked at John 4 the story of the woman at the well. God really spoke to my heart through this story. Then later in the week, my friend and I watched the next Beth Moore video in our Bible study. The session was on John 4. The woman at the well. Wow...my heart felt so loved by God. That He had a specific message for me and that He cares about every detail of my life. My friend and I had planned to watch this video weeks ago but our plans were postponed. How good to know that God's plans and timing, in the big and small things in our life, is the best.

The full story is below. A Samaritan woman came to draw water at noontime and she had an encounter with Jesus. Why did she go at noon and not in the morning with all the other women? Because of her story, her past, and what others thought and said about her. For she had five different husbands and the man she was living with was not her husband. In that culture and in those days, there was shame associated with such a past. It was easier for her to go to the well at noon and avoid gossiping women who looked down at her with shame and condemnation.

Her encounter with Jesus is so radical and profound. For Jesus knew her story. Her full story. He looked upon her and knew her past, her every mistake, He saw her heart. She was fully exposed before Jesus, yet she did not leave His presence condemned and ashamed. No, she went back to town and said “come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” This woman went from avoiding others because of her past to going out and saying this man told me everything I did.

What was the difference in her encounter with Jesus? When we come into the presence of Jesus we are fully exposed. He looks upon us and sees everything, all of our depravity and brokenness. There is nothing hidden in His sight. He sees our heart. Yet, there is such a radical love, acceptance, and security in His presence. That even after being confronted with the truth of our brokenness, we leave with such dignity. This woman should have left feeling even more ashamed, guilty, condemned. Yet instead she left the presence of Jesus with a sense of dignity, love, and acceptance. Before she wanted to hide her broken past, yet after her encounter with Jesus, she is free.

Our society and our human nature tells us to do the same. We want others to see a good picture of ourselves. We want to hide our brokenness. For it is not safe to share our brokenness, for with that comes judgment from others. How they view us may change. Yet the incredible thing about Jesus is that we are never more fully exposed yet never more fully loved and accepted. And His love and acceptance then gives us the freedom to share about our past. For our past and our brokenness is no longer about us, it is now God's story. His story of how He came into our lives and our hearts to bring freedom, love and acceptance. Our past and our story is now one to point others to God. To give God glory. Because of this woman's excitement to share “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” many people came to Jesus and believed in Him.

What did Jesus offer this woman? Living Water. We all seek something or someone to satisfy us. Yet, nothing truly fills that void. We are left wanting more and more. For this woman it was men. For each of us, it may be something different. Yet, apart from Christ we are left wanting more and more. The excess we seek only reveals the emptiness of our soul. Which only leads to bondage and to disaster in our lives. The solution: Christ offered this woman and offers each of us Living Water. He offers us Himself- His Spirit. He offers us not just life, but life abundant.

“On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.” John 7:37-39

One last thought. Anything that I seek in excess ultimately is not good for me. Even good things in excess become an idol as they become more important in my life than my relationship with God. Yet, Jesus is the one thing- the one person- that I can seek in excess. I can long for more of Him. I can pursue more of Him. I can always go deeper into His love. There is always more to discover of who He is. Desperation can be a very good thing when I am desperate for God.

“but if from thence you shall seek the Lord your God, you shall find Him, if you seek Him with all of your heart and soul.” Deut. 4:29

I love the song “The More I Seek You” by Kari Jobe as it's a beautiful picture of this truth.

The more I seek you,

The more I find you,

The more I find you,
the more I love you

I wanna sit at your feet
drink from the cup in your hand.
Lay back against you and breath,
hear your heart beat

This love is so deep,
it's more than I can stand.
I melt in your peace, it's overwhelming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI_1YliutzA

John 4:4-42

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

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

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.)

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.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 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?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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.”

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.”

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

“I have no husband,” she replied.

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

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

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

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

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

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?”

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

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

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

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

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 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. 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. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 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.”

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

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.”