by Ms. Roshini Nunes
God has a plan and purpose for each of our lives and at every junction in our life he ensures that we hear the right message that we need to hear to change or heal our lives. So do trust that today God wants to speak into your lives the message he thinks you need to hear.
We are going to dwell on the topic today of Jesus the Living Waters. Where Jesus is, it is appropriate that the word living gets associated with it, since God himself said that he is God of the living and not of the dead. Where God is there is life, there is abundance, there is healing, there is growth, there is prosperity.
I would like to dwell on this topic in the light of the story of the Samaritan woman in the Gospel of John Ch 4, where Jesus encounters a woman and reveals the whole aspect of the living waters.
The story is very simple; Jesus is tired and thirsty after a long journey and waiting by the well while his disciples have gone to bring food. Note two things here – the humility of the Lord – he didn’t ask any of his disciples to wait behind with him and the second it is good to tire the body sometimes. In the Lord’s ministry there will be many times when there will be tiredness, but at that peak of tiredness, the Lord Jesus gives out one of the most beautiful discourses on the living waters, leaving us an example of those who wish to serve in his vineyard.
The story goes about how Jesus also reveals to the woman about her 5 husbands
The story in Jn 4 is v simple – if told in 3 simple steps - tired Jesus meets woman at the well, asks for water, instead he ends up giving her living waters.
3 simple steps really – tired Jesus meets woman – Jesus seemed to have been tired with the day’s journey, but the actually tiredness of the woman’s – tired of having one husband after another, tired of relationships, tired probably of her own dependence on relationships, tired of fighting societal ridicule, tired of coming to the well in the hot sun, extremely tired and in this tiredness she meets Jesus who once said, Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. (Mt 11:28)
The second thing – Jesus meets her at the well and asks her for a drink.
Really did he need a drink? Or did she need the drink? She was so tired spiritually, mentally, emotionally that she needed to be touched, she needed to drink of God’s love.
But the Bible does mention that J wanted a drink too…surely the God who made the universe and who worked so many miracles, could have just struck the rock and water would have flowed. Moses struck the rock in the OT and water flowed….when Jesus died, and they struck and pierced him with a lance, water flowed…this God who gave his life to others was thirsty and what’s more he asks for a drink from a woman who is so thirsty herself. So indeed the Lord was thirsty then – however thirsty more for her faith than for water…for water he could have got anyhow, but how he longed to receive the faith from those for whom he died!!
Therefore my dear bros and sisters, when we are thirsty in our lives, I think God is also thirsty. When he sees us tired, fighting every emotional, spiritual, mental battle, he is so thirsty to receive our faith and so eager to give us that living water. God thirsts. Therefore even on the cross he said – I thirst – not so much for water, but for faith, for you to believe in the God who died for your sins.
I sometimes wonder how much we increase the thirst of God when we don’t believe him enough in the midst of our trials.
The woman then is more concerned about the whole Jew and Samaritan thing – but J doesn’t digress from the topic – he knows what he wanted to achieve there. He was not so much interested in correcting the Jew and Samaritan divide as much as he was in healing her, so he comes back to the point – you would have asked and he would have given you living water.
Note and then she said you have nothing to draw from and the well is deep – how will you get the living water. Note, the woman was telling the Lord the well was deep – was the well deep? Or was he need for love and acceptance so deep that made her vulnerable to so many relationships? How deep and gnawing was that craving for love, for attention, how deep was her problem that needed healing? But praise God for Jesus who is able to see how deep our problem is and when he sees he heals…the Bible says the Lord looks into the depths of our hearts and into our very soul. He looks far more than anyone can – we only can see our problems from the surface but only the Lord knows how much healing we actually need.
When the woman talks about the depth of the well, he tells her about the greatness of the living water. Note living water is full of life, it flows from springs where the water is active and flowing…water in ponds and containers is stagnant – it is collected – so not really living…but water in springs is living – where God is there is life…it is active and full of life, of wellness, of health, of good cheer. When we see people who are happy and have a zest for living, we say that person is full of life…similarly the living waters is full of life and that water becomes a spring of life for others…the person is no longer thirsty since that water is enough, and not just enough for own self, but becomes a spring of life for others.
The well is dark and deep…the living waters is flowing and full of life.
You would ask God for his gift and he would give you –ask from the depth of your soul. The mind and the heart should speak the same language – ask from the depth of your heart, with complete will and the Lord will grant you – Ask and you shall receive. ..
Springs of water within – you know that living water will be within your soul, in the depth of your being, from where it will flow as life, blessings and healing for others.
Many of us including myself know a lot of things about God and life, but our knowing is more at the intellectual level, it is not at the level of the soul, the gut, the depth of the heart – therefore when troubles come, we sometimes crumble like a cookie.
This evening God wants us to become strong from within – that living waters must flow from within – not just an external strength, but deep emotional maturity – that is where God wants to take us – to become strong and fortified from within. We can put up a big show in front of the world, but how tired we are and the depths of the wells of our life, will be determined by how strong or weak we are from within. Just like this woman constantly seeking a relationship, we will constantly seek something or another…the woman thought he was talking about the physical water- the material but he was talking about that water that could make her strong from within – that she would never thirst again – never go around looking for satisfaction from other things.
For her it was relationships…for some of us it could be relationships – one relationship after another…never satisfied with one, one relationship has barely ended, another starts…the well is like a weakness you know. The well can represent the area of weakness in your life…everytime you are thirsty you will keep visiting that well…that weakness that you will want to satisfy.
For some others, it is the need for constant approval from others…everytime I feel low I want to be approved…so I will go back to my well and whoever approves of me I will be happy. You know sometimes ministry also has a great trap for example when you preach or sing in front of people, wow you know to talk on the mike, and then adulation, unknowingly ministry can also be used to satisfy that weakness, or so tired with life that ministry can become a form of escapism – that could be a well too.
Or well of constant worry / anxiety – weakness and to beat that then your husband of indulgence and excessive partying, fighting, grumbling or holding on to relationships that are dead and over, or people who are dead and gone.
You know we cannot blame each other…each one of us has our own well of weakness – the beauty is that only God can look into the depths and see what that is.
God wants to urge us to become emotionally strong from within – then we won’t need all these approvals and wrong relationships. I want to show you the difference between a need and a want…when I buy a new car, I may want people to appreciate or say wow…that’s my want – but is it my need. I don’t need that to be happy. I don’t need people’s approval to be happy. I don’t need any relationship to make me happy. I am happy and complete in myself through the Lords grace. The first thing is to become emotionally strong from within, happiness is really a attitude a state of choosing and saying God I bless you in whatever state I am in. It has to become second nature.
The good news is that God doesn’t let the well stay the way it is – he wants to transform it into living waters. And the good news is also that every well can become a source of living waters. That is every weakness can become a blessing if the Lord intervenes. If you ask of him…note the Lord didn’t speak about the living waters to his apostles…he spoke about it to someone who was so thirsty and broken…so in a way if this woman would not have been living that kind of life, the opportunity to present her that living waters would not have been there. Hence we must rejoice in every weakness we have , since we trust that that weakness can become a source of living waters.
I think one person who was very strong from within was St. Paul. He was strong because of the following reasons:
- He knew who he was in Jesus
- Whether in need or abundance he knew how to rejoice
- No matter how people treated him, he still loved (it is like a spiritual vaccine – no matter what strikes you are immune)
- You are happy and complete in yourself, not for something to happen in your life. Happy at this stage of my life, irrespective of what has happened or what will happen in the future.
Seek the Lord first…no number of husbands could satisfy her but only the Lord Jesus. How much more we need to seek the Lord. He seems to be the answer to all our needs and wants – just to love God, to know him and to do his will. Emotional maturity comes in resting in the Fathers love at all times – God is there. Amen.