“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.” John 4:7-10
I found my self with a cup of chai tea on a wonderful spring morning. I took my bible, with every intention to start out in the book of Ecclessatis and get a word from the Lord. Yes, this was my plan that did not go as planned. I began to daydream, and began to think of a water well. It was from there I went to the woman and the well and the ecounter she had with Jesus. My thoughts took me through the story and I began to think to myself, “what is it about the well and the encounter that is so important? I decided that morning to dive into prayer and to listen and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to me what it was that He was trying to teach or speak to me.
In that moment I felt the Spirit say to me about three things, not just ordinary three things but important things that changed that day. This phrase came to my mind over and over again, “It all changed at the well.” Of course with such phrase came the question, what changed at the well? Well (no pun intended), what changed that day were three things and here they are:
Identity
“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) vs 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) vs 9.
Can you imagine Jesus coming to you at the well and asking you for a drink of water, just as he did to the Samaritan woman? What answer would you have given? Surely we can judge this woman who is having an encounter with Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lord’s, and the answer that she gave in this moment was, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman, how can you be talking to me.?” Lets not judge so quick, because we are the Samaritan woman, Jesus many times comes to us and asks of us what he sees we have and need to get rid of in our lives. He says to us on a daily basis, “give me your burdens, frustrations, all the things that so easily entangle you,” and yet we respond to him in this way, “do you know who I am Jesus, do you even know what you are asking for?” We self indentify ourselves outside of what Jesus really thinks of us, when the reality is that he aproaches us at our “WELL” because he knows who we are. We are his children, chosen, blessed and the apple of His eye.
I love Jesus’ response to 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.” This is us, we many times miss who is talking with us and asking of us, because we ge so caught up in our stuff, junk and our self worth, that when Jesus comes and meets with us we miss it, because we have the mind set of, why would Jesus meet with me?
When in reality he comes to us just as he did to the Samaritan and says, ““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.” This is where the identity change happens, we may tell Jesus why we are so unworthy of his encounter, but He comes and says, “I am Jesus and if you only knew who is meeting with you, you would not wait for me to ask you to give me everything, but you would ask me to take it and give you all of me. Why? because you are worth it.”
Knowledge
“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?…”I am he…yout don’t have to wait or look any further” vs 12,26
Did you know that giraffe’s have the same amount of bones in their necks as humans do? And did you know that they have a sponge in the back of their brains so that when they drink water and they pick their heads back up, the blood doesn’t rush back to their heads all at once and black out? I know that now, because the more time I spend with my wife I learn trivia (useless information as I call it). Yep my knowlege of things grow.
The Samaritan woman, on this particular day learned who Jesus really was. We know that when she first started talking with Jesus she really didnt know who he was, because first she responded by saying you should not be talking to me I am a woman, Samaritan and you are a Jew and a man. Later she asks a very intringin question to Jesus, “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?” (vs12) Surely we can see that she really did not have an idea of who Jesus was but, Jeus lets her know that he is the one that can give her living water so she will never thirst and he even asures her that anyone who drinks from him will never thirst. Not only did the Samaritan woman come to know that jesus was not only the great prophet, but that he was God’s gift to us all.
Jesus says to her “I am He…yout don’t have to wait or look any further” vs26.
Purpose
I have never had an encounter with Jesus in which I have never been changed. You see God encounters are life changing and it is up to us to live out the change that comes from His encounter. Jesus not only changed the woman’s identity from sinner and unworthy to forgiven, washed and new, but He showed her what he could do in her life.
It was up to her to live out who Jesus transformed her to be in the encounter. Jesus said to her “Believe me, woman, the time is coming when you will worship the Father…It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.” vs 21,23-24. Here Jesus has changed her identity and now her purpose is to worship the Lord God with not who she was, but who she now is. Not only did she accept her new purpose in Christ, but she lived it out in action.
“The woman took the hint and left. In her confusion she left her water pot. Back in the village she told the people, “Come see a man who knew all about the things I did, who knows me inside and out. Do you think this could be the Messiah?” And they went out to see for themselves.” vs 28-30 She went out and proclaimed with out shame what Jesus did in her and she lived out her purpose as a changed woman. That’s what happens when we are changed by the ecounter we have with Christ on a daily basis. Lets not miss it!