SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/7/2016
10:04 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 of “The
Contact”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 4:7-15
Message of
the verses: “7 There came a woman of Samaria to draw
water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." 8 For His disciples had
gone away into the city to buy food. 9 Therefore the Samaritan woman said to
Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan
woman?" (For Jews
have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered and said to her,
"If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ’Give Me a
drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living
water." 11 She said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with and
the well is deep; where
then do You get that living water? 12 “You are not greater than our
father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his
sons and his cattle?" 13 Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone
who drinks of this water will thirst again; 14
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst;
but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing
up to eternal life." 15 The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to
draw.’”
In yesterday’s SD I mentioned that the woman may
have known the Jesus was a Jew because of His clothing that He wore, mentioned
that Jewish men wore tassels on their cloths and as I was listening to three
chapters in the book of Deuteronomy I came across this verse, Deuteronomy 22:12
“"You shall make yourself tassels on the four corners of your garment with
which you cover yourself.”
Now after Jesus asks for a drink and the woman
wonders why He, being a Jew was talking to her Jesus then replies “If you knew
the gift of God, and who it is who says to you ‘Give Me a Drink,’ you would
have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.’” Now again we have to put ourselves in the
place of this Samaritan woman who was an outcast to not only the Jews, but to
her own people for the way she lived her life and how men have treated her in the
past and then we may understand what she said to Jesus, whom she thought at
first was just another man. I believe
that she was skeptical, and I believe that she was talking to Jesus in kind of
a smartly way. But before we get more
into her statement we have to understand what Jesus was trying to do for this
woman, and that is to witness to her about who He was and that she needed to
trust Him as Lord and Savior as His word actually turned the tables on
her. We see that when this conversation
began Jesus was the One who was thirsty, and now He wants to make this woman thirsty
for “living water,” which is exactly why He was there in the first place, and
why He had to go through Samaria. So now
we look at what she said to Jesus “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the
well is deep, where then do You get that living water?” Again I believe she was kind of poking fun at
Jesus with her answer. One of the
problems of studying this passage is that it is a very famous passage in the
Word of God and we have probably gotten some preconceived notions as to what is
going on, but perhaps as we did a bit deeper into this section we can learn
some new things. Now we can be sure that
this woman did not understand what Jesus was talking about by the way that she
answers this question. We see here the
kind of witnessing that happens most in the lives of believers as the believer
must take the initiative in finding a way to talk to someone about the
Lord. In chapter three we saw a man, Nicodemus
coming to the Lord with questions, and this is rare to have a person come to a
believer and ask them how to be saved, so we can see in this section how it is
that Jesus, the Master of witnessing talk to this woman at the well. The living water that Jesus offered this
person was salvation in all its fullness, and this included forgiveness of sin
and also the ability and the desire to live an obedient life that will bring
glory to the Lord.
Back in chapter three there was something that seems
to go along with this section, that is the living water that we spoke of when
Jesus told Nicodemus he must be born from above, and that he must be born of
the water and the Spirit. Jesus
answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the
Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:5).” In that section I quoted from a sermon by
John MacArthur to help us understand about what Jesus was talking about when He
said we must be born of the water and the Spirit, and he mentioned that the
water spoke of the Holy Spirit, and now we see a similar statement given to
this woman at the well where Jesus speaks of living water. MacArthur writes “The Old Testament uses the
metaphor of living water to describe the spiritual cleansing and new life that
comes at salvation through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Disobedient Israel was guilty of having
foolishly ‘forsaken [God], the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves
cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water’ (Jer. 2:13). Later Jeremiah warned that ‘all who forsake
[the Lord] will be put to shame. Those
who turn away on earth will be written down, because they have forsaken the
fountain of living water, even the Lord’ (17:13). Both passages emphasize that God is the only
source of salvation; He alone is the ‘fountain of life’ (Ps. 36:9), and in Him
the redeemed ‘will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation’ (Isa.
12:3; cf. Isa. 1:16-18). Isaiah 55:1
echoes God’s gracious offer of salvation: ‘Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to
the waters,’ and this invitation is reiterated in the book of Revelation (21:6;
22:17). As God Himself promised
regarding the new Covenant: ‘25 "Then
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you
from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 “Moreover, I will give you
a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of
stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 “I will put My Spirit
within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to
observe My ordinances (Ezekiel 36:25-27; cf. Isa. 44:3). John applies these themes to Jesus as the
living water, which symbolizes eternal life (v. 14; 6:35; 7:37-39).”
Looks like we will need to take one more SD to
finish this section, and Lord willing we will do that tomorrow.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Learning to better witness to the unbelievers
is something that I want to continue to learn about and none better to teach me
than the Lord Jesus Christ.
My Steps of Faith
for Today:
Have an open mind and spirit to listen to what is being taught in the
Word of God.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Love thy neighbor as thyself” (James 2:8).
Today’s Bible question: “In Jesus’ story of the Pharisee and the tax
collector, what was the tax collector’s prayer?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/7/2016 11:51 AM
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