JOHN 4:7-14 – A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
THEME OF THE DAY: THE CREATOR SATISFIES THE CREATURE. Today’s scripture contains many lessons unfolding in the account of Jesus with the woman at the well. Take time, “sit at the well”, observe and listen as the Master exposes sin to the broken woman, shows love, and gives hope to a “daughter of Eve” for the self-deception of the world and the fall brought much carnage in her life. But there is something else worthy of our attention and application.
In Jesus’ words to the woman, He uses the pictures of literal thirst and water to drive home universal need among fallen humanity – contentment. Yes, the woman sought such in human relationships. I imagine her thinking after the initial failed marriage, “Maybe the next guy will fulfill me” as she went through man after man. Well, I wish we could have given her a “pocket version” of Ecclesiastes and told her to listen to King Solomon, “Vanity, vanity, vanity, all is vanity.” But instead something far better happens for us, and is available to us. It is the theme of today’s nugget – the Creator satisfies the creature.
The following quote is widely recognized as to come from the early church father, Saint Augustine. He said, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.” In the truest sense, this is what the Lord Jesus is saying to the woman at the well – “I have made you to be satisfied, contented, and fulfilled not in human relationships but with Me, and Me alone.” And for Christians? Here is our challenge. We know that Jesus, and only Jesus, and looking to Him is the only way to contentment in life (Hebrews 12:1-12). But knowing AND living often presents a wide gulf in our Christian life. When that gulf exists, we are little different than the woman at the well or King Solomon – trying to find what is only found in the Lord Himself.
So, how do we live in the contentment of the Creator satisfying His creature? This won’t be profound but profitable. Know the Creator. Make the testimony of the Apostle Paul our daily passion and pursuit – that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death (Philippians 3:10) for to know Christ leads to satisfaction in Christ. Always.
PRAYER: “Father, thank You for not leaving me separated and forever without the satisfaction of knowing You.”
QUOTE: “The Creator alone satisfies His creature. What foolishness it is to seek satisfaction anywhere else.”
In the affection of Christ Jesus,
Pastor Jim