Wednesday, January 4, 2023

 

Wednesday, January 4, 2023


Psalms 11; 12

Isaiah 33:17-24

John 4:1-14


The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.


John is once again helping us delve the glorious mysteries of God by recording the times when Jesus used everyday images to help illustrate His point. Everyone is familiar with water. Everyone knows what it is to be thirsty. And, since Jesus knows what is in the heart of every human, He knows that our spiritual thirst is great.


It is truly marvellous that Jesus chose this place to present His teaching on this subject. Jacob had some pretty amazing experiences with God. He had a dream, where he saw a stairway leading from earth to heaven. He wrestled with God in order to get a blessing, and received a limp for his efforts. He finally reached a town in Canaan and bought some land, and this is most likely where today’s well was dug.


Jacob put in a lot of his own effort to get God to look after him. But it was ultimately in vain, because his constant bumbling just got him into even more trouble. Even so, God was always there, keeping His promises. Jesus arrives, on this historic site pregnant with significance, to reinforce once and for all the message that God keeps His promises. One of these great promises that we, along with the Samaritan woman, hold to very tightly, is held up in how God describes His own nature.


Jesus is reminding us, confirming for us, beating the point into us until we get it, that God is generous. He is king of creation, the High King of Heaven, and yet He knows all His subjects by name. He rules over all things and sustains them by the word of His power, and yet He is always ready to listen to us. When we ask the Lord Jesus for His blessing, He gives us the water of life: not just enough to fill our canteen, but a gushing spring, a geyser, an overflow. Life truly begins when Jesus takes over our lives. The little stream then becomes a gushing spring; the fresh spring of eternal life.


I heard the voice of Jesus say,
“Behold, I freely give
the living water, thirsty one;
stoop down and drink and live.”
I came to Jesus, and I drank
of that life-giving stream;
my thirst was quenched, my soul revived,
and now I live in him.

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