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Living Water


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 also 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.”
          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.” (John 4:10-15)
He turns her issue, Jews associating with Samaritans, on its head and makes it personal. If she knew Him, she would associate with Him and receive something better from Him than He asked of her. We see this today. People talk about how judgmental Christians are, they reject Christians and Christianity because they believe that Christians think they’re better than they are.
         I need to learn to turn the tables like Jesus did. So much of the “water” the world has is dead or deadly. When the studies are cited showing that the Christian lifestyle (as described in Scripture, not as consistently practiced by Christians) is healthier than the other lifestyle choices being celebrated today, the response is “Yeah, well, maybe, but not everyone can live that way, so you shouldn’t judge.”
           The reality is that the water they want Christians to drink leaves one thirsty again. When the culture (and the Church) has moved in that direction, society has benefitted. When culture (and the Church) have moved away, society has suffered. Today’s passage is an evidence of that. “Jews don’t associate with Samaritans.” And men don’t associate with women, except Jesus did, and as we have followed His example, not Mohammed’s, or Buddha’s, or any of the teachers of the other religions, the well-being of women has benefitted. So, the choice that Christians offer is this: proven benefit and life-giving lifestyles, or water (potentially laden with cholera) that will at best leave you thirsty again.

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