Living Water

As a Christian there are some passages in the Bible that become so familiar that I tend to not really pay attention , at times, when I read them. John 4 and the woman at the well is one of them.... I read it this morning and of course it lead me to a chain of other scriptures as I began thinking about the richness of what Christ was saying.

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



It is good for me to think about the beauty of the fact that Jesus gives us a "spring of water welling up to eternal life" He speaks again of this in John 7:

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified



The beauty of the gift of God to us of his Spirit within us--I like how this guy describes it:- The contrast here is fundamental and all comprehensive. "This water" plainly means "this natural water and all satisfactions of a like earthly and perishable nature." Coming to us from without, and reaching only the superficial parts of our nature, they are soon spent, and need to be anew supplied as much as if we had never experienced them before, while the deeper wants of our being are not reached by them at all; whereas the "water" that Christ gives - spiritual life - is struck out of the very depths of our being, making the soul not a cistern, for holding water poured into it from without, but a fountain (the word had been better so rendered, to distinguish it from the word rendered "well" in John 4:11), springing, gushing, bubbling up and flowing forth within us, ever fresh, ever living. The indwelling of the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of Christ is the secret of this life with all its enduring energies and satisfactions, as is expressly said (John 7:37-39). "Never thirsting," then, means simply that such souls have the supplies at home.

As a Christian I sometimes take the beauty of this for granted. But what a great and awesome thing Christ has done for us in sending His Spirit into our hearts~ and this is never ending~we will never thirst~I will never be thirsty forever. As John 14 says,

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

And His Spirit is the great Helper and Comforter:

John 15:26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me

John 16:7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you



I like to think about the word "Helper"--Greek=parakletos--as one commentary says,

"It means a lawyer or assistant in a legal question. In a wider context it means a person who provides encouragement, counsel, and strength. Jesus will send 'another' Helper, One like Himself who will carry on after Him the teaching and testimony that HE began (John 16:7-15).

I love the fact that He has touched my inner most being--the day I came to know God and was born anew was like that commentator said-- and like the Bible says~ a satisfaction of the thirst!~~~I shouldn't take this wonder for granted. This is such a precious gift to have my God touch me, change me, in the inner depths. I love the fact also that Jesus took the time to explain this to a Samaritan and to a woman.