He Dwelt Among UsSample

Jesus Offers Living Water

Jesus often met people in unexpected places. In John 4, he approached a Samaritan woman at a well in the heat of the day and offered her something she could not find anywhere else: living water. She came alone at noon, likely because of shame and isolation. Yet Jesus initiated the conversation and asked her for a drink.

This shocked her, since Jews avoided Samaritans and Jewish men did not normally engage women like this in public. What she did not realize was that Jesus had come to offer her something far greater.

He told her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water” (John 4:10 CSB). The woman had not asked for this gift, yet Jesus freely offered it. That is what grace looks like. God meets us in our ordinary moments and offers what we did not even know to ask for.

Jesus went on to explain, “Whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again” (John 4:14 CSB). The living water he offers cannot be bought or earned. Isaiah had declared the same promise centuries earlier: “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat… hear, that your soul may live” (Isaiah 55:1, 3 CSB). We cannot afford what Jesus offers, yet he gives it freely.

Then Jesus exposed the woman’s past. She had five husbands, and the man she lived with was not her husband. Her story was full of pain and failure, but Jesus did not turn away. Instead, he revealed that he was the Messiah she had been waiting for. What she could not deserve, he freely gave.

The woman left her water jar behind and ran to tell her town about Jesus. The very people who once looked down on her listened to her testimony, and many believed. Jesus stayed with them for two days, and the Samaritans declared, “We know that this really is the Savior of the world” (John 4:42 CSB). The outcast became the witness, and the whole community was changed.

The first two people Jesus engaged with in John’s Gospel could not have been more different. Nicodemus was a respected Jewish leader. The Samaritan woman was an outcast with a broken past. Yet both needed Jesus, and both were offered living water. That is still true for us. Whether we ask for it or not, whether we think we can afford it or not, whether we feel like we deserve it or not, Jesus offers living water to you.

Reflection Question: Where are you thirsty today? What would it look like for you to receive the living water Jesus offers and let him satisfy your soul?

Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you that you offer living water to those who do not ask, cannot afford it, and do not deserve it. Thank you that you offer it to me. Help me to drink deeply of your grace, to leave behind the things that cannot satisfy, and to tell others about your love. Amen.

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