Jesus the Living Water of Eternal Life | John 4 Devotional

“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.” —JOHN 4:10

Many people feel as though their lives are sinking into a bottomless well and nothing is going to stop their descent. They know they have made many mistakes and are thirsting for a way out, but every effort they make only drops them further down. 

It was at a well Jesus encountered the woman of Samaria. She had been married five times and was currently living with a man she was not married to. Ostracized by her community, she made the trek by herself to collect water in the heat of the day. Her life had been one failure after another and her history symptomatic of a thirst we all have for identity, purpose, fulfillment and love. But along the way, like the woman of Samaria, we have done the wrong things and have trapped ourselves in a tangled web of our own doing.

Jesus does not stop at the well, stare down and say, “I told you so.” He does not condemn, judge, or even throw lectures our way. He gets down into the well, right into the thick of the tangled mess our lives are in, and He says, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14). 

We can be so concerned about the symptoms of our sin and what we do that we seek only to deal on that level, but that is not the intent of Jesus. He wants to go deep into every area of our lives to exercise His reign and provide His resources. He said to the woman, “If you knew the gift of God…you would have asked…” Romans 6:23 says, “…the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.” John 17:3 says, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” 

The first word of the Gospel is not about God demanding, but of God giving and the picture is this: the water Jesus gives will be deep like a well, and fresh like a spring. It does not simply address the symptoms (what we do), but the cause (what we are). We are sinners, incapable of living the way God intended, so God gives us Jesus. It is in His strength, His direction we climb out of the well, and begin to see how He meets the deepest needs of our hearts.

Dear Lord Jesus, I ask You to come into every area of my life to cleanse me, forgive me and take the reins of my life. Thank You, Lord, with all my heart. Amen.

Have I felt my life at a dismal low and did I turn to Christ?