UBF Daily Bread

LIVING WATER

Passage: John 4:1~15

Key verse: 13-14

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John^(A)— ²although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³So he left Judea^(B) and went back once more to Galilee.

⁴Now he had to go through Samaria.^(C) ⁵So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.^(D) ⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”^(E) ⁸(His disciples had gone into the town^(F) to buy food.)

⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan^(G) woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.^[a])

¹⁰Jesus 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.”^(H)

¹¹“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well^(I) and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

¹³Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.^(J) Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water^(K) welling up to eternal life.”^(L)

¹⁵The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty^(M) and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

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Footnotes

John 4:9 Or do not use dishes Samaritans have used

To avoid the Pharisees, Jesus traveled back to Galilee. Instead of taking the normal route, he went through Samaria, which was a territory that the Jews stayed clear of. Jesus went beyond all human barriers, to the most despised and most rejected places, to encounter and save one lost and needy soul. While his disciples went to get food, he sat by a well and met a Samaritan woman.

Jesus asked for her a drink of water. In response, the woman refused because Jesus was a Jew and she was a Samaritan. But Jesus did not turn away from her. He wanted to offer her a gift: living water. This woman came to the well every day for a drink, but she always needed to come back until finally the Messiah came to her. Jesus wanted to satisfy her soul with the gift of God so she would never be thirsty again.

We often feel dissatisfied and look for physical things to fill our hearts (success, wealth, romance, popularity). We want to take away the emptiness of our daily lives but going to these “wells of water” does not cure our inner thirst. What is the solution? Jesus declared that it is only when we drink the water that he gives that we will never thirst. When we drink the water he gives us, we will overflow with the living water of eternal life. We can receive this free gift from God when we put our faith in Jesus (John 6:35).

Prayer: Father, thank you for Jesus, who came to give us living water so we would never thirst in this world. May we be open to receiving your gift today.

One Word: Receive the living water of eternal life from Jesus today