Draw Near: A 7-Day Advent PlanSample

Drawing from the Endless Well

Weekly Overview:

The Christmas season is a powerful and unique time of year to remember that Jesus came to make a way for us to be near God. In his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus built a bridge between us and God allowing us to have continual, unhindered communion with our Creator. But God can’t force us into nearness with him. Even as believers filled with the Holy Spirit, we can choose to live as if God is still far off. So this Christmas season, may we choose to open our hearts to the living God that we might experience fullness of joy in his loving presence.

Scripture: 

“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.” John 4:10

Devotional:

In John 4:7-15 we find a powerful metaphor illustrating God’s heart for his people.

We were created with an insatiable thirst for relationship with God. We were made to experience true rest and satisfaction in one place and from one relationship: intimacy with the Father. In Jesus we find what our hearts have been looking for from our first breath. In Jesus we find a pathway to the Father not formed by our exploration or wandering, but by his steadfast love and unceasing pursuit. 

Jesus looks to you and me today and offers us life-giving water that satiates our most foundational thirst. He places within us “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” He gives us clear, boundless access to intimacy with God that our hearts might overflow with rivers of his loving-kindness. And this love isn’t something we have to strive for. It’s not something we have to work to earn. Rather, it’s a free gift, like salvation, that we can simply open our hearts to and receive. 

Take time today to receive what God so freely gives. Find rest and purpose in intimacy with your Creator. Cease your striving and open your heart to the God who’s loved you from the first. And drink deeply of the endless well of God’s steadfast love.

Guided Prayer: 

1. Meditate on God as your source of satisfaction and life. 

2. Where do you need the life-giving waters of God’s presence today? Where do you need him to fill you up that you might operate from a place of overflow? 

3. Draw from the waters of God’s love. Receive his presence and find rest for your soul in his steadfast love. 

When we live as those fulfilled by God’s goodness, we are positioned to see Heaven come to earth. 

The Valley of Baca was the driest place in the area. It wasn’t a place marked by springs or early rain. But when God’s people spend time following their hearts to his presence, or Zion, he makes what was dry and weary a place filled with life and health. He takes what was once desolate and makes it fertile and life-giving. Trust that as you spend time with the Lord he will make you an instrument of his kingdom. Trust that as your heart is transformed by his love that he will use you to transform the world around you. May you be a powerful instrument of renewal and redemption today as you live from a place of intimacy with your Creator. 

Extended Reading: Psalm 84