Jesus talks with a Samaritan Woman

 
Photo by:♥KatB Photography♥ on Flickr.com

Today's Thirsty Thursday is taken from John chapter 4 Verses 1 through 23.

4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John — ² although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³ So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.  ⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.  ⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)  ⁹ 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.)  ¹⁰ 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.”  ¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² 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?”  ¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ 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.”  ¹⁵ 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.”  ¹⁶ He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”  ¹⁷ “I have no husband,” she replied.  Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”  ¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”  ²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  ²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.  ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”  ²⁵ The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”  ²⁶ Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

 

Jesus had just come off the road.  He was tired, hungry , hot and thirsty.  It was noon, the hottest part of the day.  Hot, hungry and thirsty, and what does he do?  He ask for a drink of water.  In doing so He broke down racist and sexist barriers.  Usually not something you want to try on an empty stomach.  The racism and the sexism is why she replied, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”  She was more than a little annoyed by the request.  It was kind of like a black man asking a white woman for a drink in the deep south in the 1940’s or 50’s.  The Jews and Samaritans thought they were better than the other.  Jesus replies by telling her of the living water.  She must have thought he was crazy.  She was confused, she thought he was talking about water that you drink.  He was talking about the peace that comes with salvation through Christ.  Jesus knew that she did not believe Him.  So He told her to go and get her husband, knowing that she did not have a husband and that she was promiscuous.  Which is probably why she was at the well at noon.  She was trying to avoid the wives of the men she was sleeping with.  When she told Him that she had no husband Jesus replied, “You’re right.  You don’t have A husband, you have five.”  He told her something that a mere man could not have known.  She said',”Ok, ok, I know you are a prophet, but you Jews got the worship thing all wrong.  Jesus told her that a time is coming when it won’t matter where you worship, but how you worship.  And race and sex won’t matter.  God wants true worshippers who worship in the Spirit and in truth.  Wow!  Makes you look at how you worship doesn’t it?  When we go to church, are we worshipping so that everyone there will so us?  Or, are we worshipping God because He is worthy of our praise?   Back to the passage.  The woman tries to brush him off.  She says, “Well, when Christ gets here He will explain it all.”  Then Jesus makes the boldest statement ever made.   He declared, “I AM HE!”  He told her that He is The Christ. 

Do you believe Him when He says, ”I am He.”  Your very soul depends on it.  Do you believe that He died for your sins and rose again from the dead?  Do you long for the living water?
If this is your first time hearing the good news of Jesus Christ, and you want to follow Him, you too can know his joy. The peace that passes all understanding. All you have to do is ask Christ into your heart and ask him to forgive your sins. He stands at the door, ready to come in. If you would like to know Jesus and God the father, please pray the following prayer or one like it. Or, you can contact me at jeremylail@gmail.com and I will be more than happy to pray with/for you.
Heavenly Father, have mercy on me, a sinner. I believe in you and that your word is true. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God and that he died on the cross so that I may now have forgiveness for my sins and eternal life. I know that without you in my heart my life is meaningless. I believe in my heart that you, Lord God, raised Him from the dead. Please Jesus forgive me, for every sin I have ever committed or done in my heart, please Lord Jesus for give me and come into my heart as my personal Lord and Savior today. I need you to be my Father and my friend. I give you my life and ask you to take full control from this moment on; I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ.
Amen.