DAILY DEVOTIONAL – April 21, 2020
“Half Full? Or Overflowing?“
Prayer: Lord Jesus, as You hung on our cross and were pierced by a Roman spear, You poured forth from Yourself life-giving water with Your blood. We confess Lord that our jars are empty. We have too often sought refreshment from empty wells. Forgive us Lord, and draw us ever closer to You so that we may live. Amen.
Scripture: John 4:7-15
7 A woman from Samaria came 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 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 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.”
Devotional – “Half Full? or Overflowing?”
Being a native Southern-California, I don’t pretend to be a farmer by any far stretch of the imagination. Though I am not knowledgeable in the ways of farming or raising cattle or horses, I think it is fairly obvious that here in the United States the most common way of preventing animals from wandering off too far is to build fences around the area in which you want them to stay. However, this is not the method used by farmers working in the expansive wilderness of the Australian Outback.
As I learned from an article I once read, due to the nature of the land and sources of food, it is not feasible or practical to try and control cattle or horses with fences. The ranches (or stations as they call them in the outback) are so vast that a fence is rendered absolutely superfluous. An outback farmer instead has to sink a bore and create a well, wherever he can manage to find water in the arid land. This technique has proven very effective as the livestock, though they will stray, will never roam too far from the well lest they die. As long as there is a supply of clean water, the livestock will remain close by.
The physical human body is comprised of up to 60% water. Though estimates will vary widely depending on many individual factors, it is said that a person can survive about 3 weeks without food, but can only survive for 10-12 days without water. Nothing is more essential to our physical well being and survival than water, and yet, no matter how much water we drink, we will still all die. Though we all die at different times and for various reasons, the reason death is a certain reality for us all is not because of any lack of substance, but because of the presence of sin. Sin we have committed, and the sinners that we are.
If we want to live, even though we all die, we must drink of a different well. We must drink from the eternal well of God’s love and salvation in Jesus Christ. As Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well, “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.”
A person may be able to survive for 10-12 days without water, but that doesn’t mean those 10-12 days will be enjoyable. Dizziness, headaches, rapid and irregular heartbeat, irritability and even delusions are all symptoms of dehydration that can set in within 8 hours of lacking the water our body needs. The only cure is to find and consume water.
Much the same can be said for our spiritual life, our most important life. When we wander away from faith and wander too far from our daily relationship with Jesus, our life starts to suffer. Feeling directionless, anxious, ashamed, uncertain, empty, purposeless or hopeless? There is only one cure; the living water of Christ. Sure, we can and too often do try and quench our thirst with the wells of this world, but they will only prove to make us thirsty again because although they are temporarily refreshing, they do not give us what our spirit needs to survive and thrive.
We should not misunderstand what Jesus is saying here to the woman at the well. Drinking of the eternal waters of Christ is not just a one time event. This is what the woman at the well foolishly thought at first when she said in response to Jesus, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” Jesus then called her into the light of truth. He called her into repentance. 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
By telling the woman to go and get her husband, Jesus was calling her to give up the empty wells she had been returning to and rely only on Him for the refreshment she was seeking through loose living. Jesus was passing through Samaria on His way to Jerusalem where He would be betrayed and crucified for the sins of the world. He was asking her to bring all of her sinfulness back to Him so that He would take it from her and carry it to the cross. He was inviting this woman to bring her whole life to Him, so that she would receive the living water Christ offered, and live.
That is the invitation Christ gives to you and I my friends. He says to us in this text, “Go, get all of the empty wells you have been relying on and come back to me. Let me take them from you, let me take them to the cross. All you need is the water I give to you.”
As we continue to read of this woman’s encounter with Jesus, we see in verse 28, “So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” Through His Word Christ opened this woman’s eyes. He gave and she received true living water, and as Christ promised, it welled up inside her to overflowing so that she had to run back and share the Good News. Just as this Samaritan woman did, when we drink fully of Christ, we too will leave behind our old water jars and be filled to overflowing.
Well thanks for joining me for another daily devotion in God’s Word, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
