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.” John 4:7-15, NIV
‘Sin and Souls’, that was my coworker’s prayer request for Hannah House at our monthly corporate prayer time. It struck me that despite how general that request was, it was both a true and deep request. As humans on the planet earth we are stuck in one of two possible states of being. The first is that of being lost and separate from God before we accept Jesus as our Savior, and the second is after we are saved and called to sanctification, to confront and fight the sin in our lives. With everyone in my community at the Hannah House, I’m constantly praying for the freedom of salvation for my gals, for them to see their sin patterns and to turn from them to God. Frankly, it’s also what I pray for myself. I pray that once I realize that there is a sin area in my life that I will ask the Lord for help, turn to Him, and run from whatever it is that separates me from the Lord.
As I was reading the passage posted above I was struck with the way the Gospel is presented. O, the simplicity of it! “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.” What struck me more than anything else about this verse is how often I forget about the living water even now in my life, and how often I continue to walk in sin instead of choosing the living water. Even though I have drank from Jesus (the only water that satisfies), I still choose to drink the earthly water that leaves me thirsty! So many sin patterns in our lives are ones that we can’t just rid ourselves of once. Rather, these sins ensnare us in a cycle where we must continually go back and turn to Him. Sin doesn’t satisfy; it leaves us thirsty, and the only way to quench that thirst fully is to turn from the sin and replace it with Jesus.
“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” (vv. 13-14).
So this is the cry of my heart for my life and our community: Prayer that we will stop drinking the water that doesn’t satisfy and only grows our discontentment and thirst. Instead, that we would drink from the water Jesus is offering. O, that we would stop partaking in sin that leaves us empty and dry and instead seek Jesus and the Gospel to give us fulfillment as we turn from sin to Him.
