Day 7

“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

Samaritans were rejected by Israelites, a legacy going back over 700 years to the time Assyrian overlords intermarried with Israelites and produced children who were neither Jew nor Gentile. This antagonism by the Jews to Samaritans was at its height in Jesus’ day, and therefore it is no surprise when Jesus asked a Samaritan woman to give Him a drink, she replied, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” Jesus reply was to say, “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.”

This led to the longest personal dialogue Jesus had with any individual in the four Gospels. He starts by telling her God had a gift to give away to her, ‘if you knew the gift of God… you would have asked…’ The first word of the gospel is not about God demanding of us, but God giving to us! What He does demand of us, He demanded of his Son as our substitute, and in consequence, He is now distributing gifts purchased by His death and resurrection.  

What is the ‘gift of God’ that Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman about? Many things can be legitimately described as a gift from God, but Romans 6:23, states, “…the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.” Eternal life is not something we enter into when we die, but something we receive when we are born again of the Spirit of God, here and now. “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has (in the present tense) eternal life and will not be condemned; he has (present tense) crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24).  It is that quality of life that becomes ours when the eternal life of Christ is within us. 

We have an inbuilt thirst for that life. Jesus knew this woman had been married five times and was currently living with someone she wasn’t married to, but it was symptomatic of her thirst. When people are really thirsty, they will drink anything, including dirty water, and Jesus pointed out to her that her marriages, love and sex life, had all offered her satisfaction but had failed her every time. Though asking her for a drink to satisfy his physical thirst, He had a gift to give her which would meet the deepest need of her heart, for ‘whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst again’ (John 4.14).

PRAYER: Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for your endless supply of “living water” that never fails to sustain and refresh me. 

TO REFLECT UPON: Am I drinking water that leaves me thirsty… that doesn’t meet the deep need of my heart? My soul will only be refreshed in Jesus Himself.