Transformed! (part 3)
Day 207
October 9, 2020
As usual the day was hot in Sychar. No one from the village ever came to Jacob’s well to fetch water at this time of the day. At noontime, the sun was at its hottest which made the travel to the well and back seem even longer than it was. So you can imagine her surprise when she saw him sitting there by the well. He looked tired and he didn’t have anything to draw water with. He must also have been very thirsty.
Then he said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”
As soon as he asked her that question, she knew two things: He definitely was thirsty and he was a Jew. Her skin began to bristle. She thought, The Jews hate us. We are Samaritans. How can he even be talking to me?
In her confusion and suspicion she asked, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” Then he said the words that would begin the most life-changing conversation she would ever have:
“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)
Jesus offered living water to the woman at the well. This is the same spiritual water that Jesus explained to Nicodemus in the previous chapter of John, the same water that God said he would sprinkle on the hearts of men to clean them completely of their sins and give them a new heart. With this water and a new spirit, man would be reborn. (Ezekiel 36:25–27)
She at first didn’t understand and even was jarred by his apparent arrogance, but as their conversation continued, Jesus did many things:
He explained to her that the water he spoke of was not literal water, but spiritual that would produce eternal life.
He exposed the truth of the life she was currently living which did not satisfy her deepest longing...to worship God.
He expressed to her that a time had now come when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, and that God who is spirit is seeking these kinds of worshipers.
She wondered, How could he know all these things? He was obviously a prophet, and so she said as she grasped to make sense of it all, “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then he said “I am he.” (John 4:26)
Like the disciples that came before her, this woman had a true encounter with the living Son of God, and her life was transformed. We read in the rest of this chapter that after this experience, the woman leaves behind her water jar, and runs to tell the whole town to come meet this man Jesus. The woman, who traveled in isolation to the well at the hottest point of the day, was now an evangelist proclaiming before everyone, unafraid, who this man was and what this man had done: “He told me everything I ever did.” Because of her testimony, many came to Jesus and upon hearing his words, they too believed. Messiah had come. Even to the Samaritans.
Transformation happens when we hear the truth and allow it to change our lives. The woman had to acknowledge that the life she had been living was not the life that God wanted for her and she had to believe that what God was offering to her, through the Messiah, was the better promise of eternal life. God was looking for a true worshipper like her.
As you draw closer to Jesus, by being in His word and in prayer, he will continue to explain to you the precious gift of eternal life. He will also expose anything that may still be thriving in the darkness of your heart that needs to go. And He will express to you the greatest truth of all, that God is seeking people that will love Him and worship Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Jesus is the one who gives a new heart, a transformed heart, for those who believe.
The harvest is ripe. Do you believe?
Read John 4