Water of Life

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. I'm Amy Boucher-Pye and I called our reading Water of Life. Andrea's home life was unstable and she left at 14, finding a job and living with friends. Yearning for love and affirmation, she later moved in with a man who introduced her to drugs, which she added to the alcohol she already drank regularly.

But the relationship and the substances didn't satisfy her longings. She kept searching and after several years she met some believers in Jesus who reached out to her, offering to pray with her. A few months later, she finally found the one who would quench her thirst for love, Jesus. The Samaritan woman at the well whom Jesus approached for water found her thirst satisfied too.

She was there in the heat of the day, probably to avoid the stares and gossip of other women who would have known her history of multiple husbands and her current adulterous relationship. When Jesus approached her and asked her for a drink, he bupped the social conventions of the day, for he, as a Jewish teacher, would not normally have associated with a Samaritan woman. But he wanted to give her the gift of living water that would lead her to eternal life.

He wanted to satisfy her thirst. When we receive Jesus as our Savior, we too drink of this living water. We can then share a cup with others as we invite them to follow him. Our Bible reading with today's Our Daily Bread devotional is from John chapter 4 verses 4 through 14. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink?

His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?

For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, 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. Sir, the woman said, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock? Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. Let's pray. Father God, you welcome all who are thirsty to come to the waters and drink. Satisfy our thirst through your living water. We pray in the name of your Son, Jesus. Amen. Today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.