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Day 6: The Living water.

One of the most beautiful stories of the reconciliation offered by God happens in the most unlikely place that Jesus would set up shop for a harvest, at least in the age when He showed up. It took place at a well in Samaria, in the middle of the day.  I mean, that’s like me scheduling a service on Monday night of the National Championship game while the Buckeyes face the Fighting Irish, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense by human standards. However, I am reminded over and over in scripture and in experience what God said through Isaiah:


Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

God’s ways may not make sense, but I guarantee that His ways are best.

                  

In this beautiful story of reconciliation, at a well in Samaritan territory in the middle of the day when normal people aren’t getting water, Jesus meets a woman who is a social outcast, adulteress, and on top of that a Samaritan. Jews at this point in their culture had become hardened and hateful to almost anyone outside the tribe of Israel, but especially Samaritans due to their decision to marry into the Assyrians once the Lord handed the Northern Kingdom to Assyria. So, this woman has everything going against her. In the Jewish disciple’s eyes and if we’re being honest in our eyes, this woman wasn’t worth the effort. But… “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” And for this woman’s sake, and mine for that matter, I say thank God that He thought she was worth it! Let’s look at this story: 


John 4: 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

Folks, this woman on the surface would seem like the last person a preacher would be investing in, but the Son of God had a divine appointment that day to change her life! Jesus offered her living water before even bringing up her transgressions. That is proof that I know what I am saying when I say that our God is a God of reconciliation! He offered it to her before she even knew she needed to repent! 

                  

Jesus mentions that this living water isn’t something you consume, but it’s something that wells up inside of us! It will well up and fulfill whoever has it and it will result in life everlasting! Who wouldn’t want that? The woman, thinking on physical terms said, “sign me up so I won’t have to come out here again!” That’s when Jesus turned the conversation to her dire spiritual need. She tried to steer it in a direction to dodge the conviction, but finally she mentioned that one day the Messiah would come and explain all these things, and Jesus said, to an adulteress Samaritan woman, “I am He.”  From that moment, her life was changed. She threw down her pot, ran into town, and told everyone to come and see a man who told her all she had ever done. Look what happened to that town because Jesus offered the living water to this Woman:


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

When God gets in the hearts of lost people, the world can be changed! Don’t ever think anyone is too far gone, too dirty, or too lost to share the living water. 

                  

Let me end today’s devotion with a reservoir check of your well of living water. The living water, or the fulfillment peace and joy, in our lives comes from our healthy relationship with God the father, it is made available by the work of the Son, and it is ministered to us by the work and presence of the Holy Spirit. Honestly, we have so many people running around today with our living water warning light on that signals we have 50 miles to empty. Maybe that is you today and you are wondering how the living waters can flow again, or maybe you’re thinking that you need to feel that fullness for the first time. If that’s you today, I have great news. There’s no combination lock on the spicket of the living water. 

                  

In our photosynthesis analogy I had mentioned the water was our praise and worship. Without getting too into the weeds let me explain those two terms. Praise is our vocalization of God’s blessings and works in our lives. Worship is our proclamation of His majesty, worthiness, and glory. When we praise it reminds us of and informs others of what God has done for us. When we worship, it puts our perspective fully on the vastness of the God we serve. Our anxieties and problems pale in comparison and sometimes we need to praise and worship to get the water we so desperately need. I kid you not, sometimes I just have to get alone and worship through song and word all by myself, and church the living waters flow. So, if you need that water that wells up from inside, praise him for what He has done and fall down and worship Him for who He is. I promise, the living water reservoir in your soul will begin to fill up and I pray it will spill out all over your workplace, your family, and our church! 


Let me leave you with this Psalm of praise and worship!


Psalm 100:
1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!
3 Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!
5 For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

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