SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/8/2016
10:40 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-3 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.’”
We pick up from verse 12 as the woman asks Jesus a
second question “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?” I have noticed that when I study the gospels
that there are many times when someone asks Jesus a question that when you look
at the next thing that Jesus says He does not seem to answer the question asked
Him, but seems to tell them what they need to know. It’s like He is saying in His mind that they
really need to hear what I am going to tell them, not what they asked Me. Of course Jesus was greater than Jacob who
dug that well, but Jesus did not say to her “Yes I am greater than Jacob for I
am the eternal God.” I think that we can
be assured that the woman expected a negative answer to this question she just
asked Jesus, as I mentioned in earlier SD’s this woman seems to be acting in a
know at all way, a smarty, and this does not seem to bother Jesus at all, for
He knows that once He finishes talking to her that she will come to accept Him
as her Savior and Lord. D. A. Carson is
quoted by John MacArthur who writes: “Misunderstanding
combines with irony to make the woman twice wrong: the ‘living water’ Jesus offers does not come
from an ordinary well, and Jesus is in fact far greater than the patriarch Jacob.”
As mentioned we can see how patient Jesus is when He
answers her question “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; 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.” As mentioned He did not
really answer her particular question, but does tell her exactly what she needs
to know. Jesus has taken a simple
request by Him to this woman “give me a drink” and has now turned the
conversation into spiritual things as at the end of His answer He speaks about “eternal
life.” He doesn’t even speak of Jacob,
even though the Samaritans surely claimed Jacob as one of their ancestors. Jesus is also comparing the water that comes
out of this well to the water He offers as quenching the spiritual thirst that
everyone has. Everyone born has a desire
to worship, the problem is who they worship, or what they worship, but the
desire is there to worship and in His conversation with the woman Jesus will
tell her who it is that she should worship that will satisfy her need to
worship in the truest way.
Now as we look at this answer that Jesus gives let
us take a look at Isaiah 12:3 “3 Therefore you will joyously draw water From the springs of
salvation.” MacArthur adds “Here
was the living water of spiritual life (cf. 7:38) that her parched soul
desperately needed (cf. Ps. 143:6).” Let
us look at both of these verses: “"He
who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ’From his innermost being will flow
rivers of living water’ (John 7:38).”
Next Psalm 143:6 “I stretch out my hands to You; My soul longs for You,
as a parched land. Selah.” Jesus knew
that the woman had a parched soul that longed for true worship, and the
satisfaction of having “living water,” to quench her parched soul.
We can see once again that the concept that the
woman has is still in material or physical thinking as she says to Jesus “Sir,
give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” Later on in the gospel we will see a group of
Galilean’s who come to the same mistaken conclusion when Jesus talks to them
about bread from heaven and they say to Him “Lord always give us this
[physical] bread” (John 6:34; cf. v. 26).
Her desire was not to continue to come to this well and draw water and
that, so far is what she has gotten from this conversation with Jesus.
MacArthur concludes this section by writing “At this
point, the woman does not appear to have been clear on the matter of spiritual
transformation. Jesus had spoken to her
about the water of eternal life, and she seemed willing to accept it, but no
conditions had been stated. As with any
lost sinner, this woman needed to understand two crucial issues before she could
receive the living water of eternal life—namely, the reality of her sin and His
identity as Savior. In these last two
points, Jesus addressed both of those issues.”
Next we will look at the Conviction and then the Christ to address these
concerns.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I am thankful that the Lord gave to me the “living
water” of salvation many years ago, as mentioned my salvation experience had
some similar things that happened to this woman. It is also my desire to be able to tell
others of this experience so that they will also experience having their
parched soul be fulfilled with the only true salvation.
My Steps of Faith
for Today:
Trust the Lord to help me to feel better as I have been under the
weather for almost a week, and to help me when I am able to get out of the
house again to be able to tell someone that the Lord brings onto my path the
message of salvation.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “God be
merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:13).
Today’s Bible question: “Who said ‘If thou wilt walk in My ways…as
they father David did walk, then I will lengthen thy days’?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/8/2016 11:29 AM
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