Welcome to Day 8 of our 40 Day challenge! John 4:4-29

(Catch up with us, with our reading list, and Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7)

Today we are in John 4:4-29:

John 4:4-29

4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 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.)

10 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.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of waterwelling up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spiritand in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”

 

Jesus keeps drawing our focus to what is actually going on—the higher concerns of the Kingdom. We are concerned about water and lunch and which group is right. And Jesus instead of addressing those, He addresses our hurts and our needs.

We see the Lord using the most unlikely people to share His message. And maybe that’s a message for me too. I can be out of commission for the first part of our challenge, and He can still move hearts and answer prayers. It’s not dependent on only me and my ability. Only my willingness to do what He asks. It’s such an important 40 days of focus on prayer, and the Lord does amazing things in our midst each year. And with the severe storms and power outages,  all I’ve been able to do for the beginning of it is pray and surrender. Because it’s never been about me and my ability and God loves to choose the unlikeliest people to share His message, they just have to be willing. And I am always willing. The less able I am, the more obvious it is the God is involved.

Lord, thank you for these 40 days together with you and thank you for each person joining in. Thank you for working through the unlikeliest of people. I lift up this group to you and say amen to the things they are praying for over these 40 days.

Options for further  journaling or discussion throughout the challenge:

• Choose a part of the passage to write out by hand. Writing by hand helps us slow down and focus on what the Lord might highlight for us in the passage. Our brains can focus and remember better by writing than just reading alone.
• Journal about what the passage brings to mind. Does the passage tell us anything about God? Does it tell us anything about our response to Him?
• Does your heart respond in gratitude to any part of the passage? Write or pray your gratitude to the Lord.

 

We’ll see you tomorrow, for Day 9 and Matthew 5:1-16

♥ Samantha