Welcome to day 17 of our 40 day challenge! Today, we are in Luke 15

(You can catch up on our Intro, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Day 12, Day 13, Day 14, Day 15, Day 16 if you missed them)

John 4:5-42

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

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 townto 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 water welling 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 Spirit and 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?” ³⁰ They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

³¹ Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

³³ Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

³⁴ “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. ³⁵ Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶ Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷ Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Many Samaritans Believe

³⁹ Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. ⁴¹ And because of his words many more became believers.

⁴² They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

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In previous 40 day challenges, we’ve considered the difference between women today and in Jesus’s day. Women couldn’t initiate divorce then, so if a woman has had five husbands, this is a woman who has been rejected over and over and over. Therefore, it appears that Jesus isn’t calling out sin, but wounds.

This morning, I’m noticing how Jesus is using the language of thirsting, and the water that will have her thirsting again or not.

Jesus also asks us, what do we thirst for? What wells do we return to, trying to fill up a lack in our lives? Perhaps wells of approval or success? Maybe control, security, or recognition or love? Certainty? Things that will satisfy our thirst for a moment. That, for just a moment, will make us feel better as we get the job, the money, the approval, recognition, or love. But it’s all fleeting. We’ll be thirsty again.

This is where Jesus meets this woman. And it’s where He meets all of us. In our need, in our thirst, at midday when the sun is high, and maybe we are tired or lonely. All the wells we use, apart from Jesus, leave us thirstier each time. Most of us know this because we’ve spent our lives trying and failing to fill ourselves up. But we’re left empty and thirsty again, and again.

Jesus meets us here, in our hurt and in our loss. In all the ways we’ve tried to fill ourselves up and satisfy what we’re missing. He radically sees us to the very core of our being.

And He doesn’t chastise or rebuke. He reveals our hurt and our lack, and offers us the living water that becomes a stream welling up within us. This living water He offers never depletes and never leaves us empty.

Every way we try to fill ourselves up will leave us empty again. But Jesus offers us living water that fills us perpetually.

And as we see with this woman here, it’s not for our benefit. Her moment of being truly seen by Jesus wasn’t just for her alone. It wasn’t designed to just give her peace and hope and end with her. Her encounter with Jesus disrupted her life and her entire community!

That’s what redemption does! Jesus doesn’t redeem us just so we can have hope and peace alone with Him. We aren’t meant to take our time alone with Jesus at the well, and keep all the peace for ourselves. His living water is meant to flow from us to others. Love, justice, healing, and peace are meant to flow from us to others.

Our encounters with Jesus are not just meant for us alone. Living water remains living by flowing.

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 18, and Matthew 18

♥ Samantha