He Told Me

John 4:39 - And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all that I ever did.”

The story of the Samaritan woman is well-known. Jesus and His disciples were on their way to Galilee and had to go through Samaria. Jews at that time were not to associate with Samaritans. But God... Jesus rested at a well while the disciples went for food. It was noon and the Samaritan woman came to the well for water (she was an outcast in the community because of her lifestyle and went at an hour no other would go.) 

She met Jesus. He began to talk with her. He asked her for water. She questioned why He would speak with her when He was a Jew. Now you can’t tell me Jesus didn’t know in advance this meeting would take place! I believe it was His purpose to be at that well, that He would be alone with her, that He knew she would show up so He could reveal Himself to this sinful woman. 

He told her He had a gift from God, living water, not anything like the water she had come to collect. She was curious and asked if she might have some. Then He told her exactly what her lifestyle was without condemnation. She was amazed that He knew such things. He revealed to her that He was the Messiah the Jews were waiting for, the One who would save. 

She ran back to tell others in the town. Imagine, an outcast so excited about who she had met she couldn’t contain herself as and here she was telling them some seemingly outlandish thing. The words she said were “He told me all that I ever did.” 

Don’t doubt that Jesus doesn’t know everything you ever did either! He knew all I ever did but He pursued me. He met me at just the right time and revealed Himself. He may not have told me then and there all I had ever done, but in time I realized through His Word that many things I considered just what everyone else does so it couldn’t be that wrong, were indeed wrong. 

This is where some get hung up. They have created their own beliefs of what God would be okay with; or they just can’t believe He would be so stern as to not allow certain lifestyles or words spoken or types of entertainment or acts/attitudes. He knows and He reveals the truth. It is up to us to believe Him, to choose what’s right over what’s wrong. 

Praise God, like the Samaritan woman, He doesn’t walk past us in our sinful natures but gives us a chance to choose to believe, like she and many other Samaritans did.  And many more believed because of His word. (John 4:41) But it’s our choice. You don’t need to believe me. I pray that He will reveal Himself just to you, that He would tell you all that you ever did, so you can believe. 

John 4:42 - Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”

Here She Is Again!

John 4:10-11 - Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, "Give Me a drink," you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." The woman said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?" 

Oh, this Samaritan woman. What a bevy of stories can be gleaned from her one encounter with Jesus.

We are all like her you know, whether man or woman. She is the represents sin, something to which we all can hold claim...even if it isn't the same as hers.

As my friend Carol and I drove to my "little Baptist church," Superstition Foothills, in Gold Canyon, Arizona, I knew we would be fed a good meal from Pastor Joe Knowles as he related the account of this woman and how her life shared a moment in time with Jesus and how Jesus even needed a drink.

And you know, it only takes a moment with Jesus, to meet Him where you are, in your sinful state, to taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:8).

As Jesus hung on the cross moments before His death at Calgary, He spoke the two words: I thirst. Pastor Joe pointed out that Jesus' whole life was centered around winning lost souls. Even at the cross after He had undergone mocking, spitting, the crown of thorns, the agony of the whipping, the long walk with the cross on His back, then the nails piercing His hands and feet, He never spoke against the people. No, He did as He had done at the well with the Samaritan woman, He saved a soul, the one thief who acknowledged his sins before Jesus.

At the well Jesus met the Samaritan woman and told her she might be dipping the bucket for water to quench her thirst but only He could provide the water that would allow her to never thirst again. And she was curious about such water. She received Christ within minutes.

Pastor Joe said the Greek word for water in the account of this woman was word. I find that incredibly interesting and certainly not a coincidence! If we are curious about the water that will never cause us to thirst again, we need only go to the Word. Jesus is the Word. Jesus is the Living Water. The Bible is the Word. Ephesians 5:26 tells us that He might sanctify and cleanse...with the washing of water by the word.

The quenching of the water of the word. If we take the time to quench our thirst each day by opening up the Word, we meet the Living Word page by page. It quenches. He quenches.

What more can I add to this? If we have received Christ we have been washed. We have thirsted once in our lives but now our thirst has been quenched. There is a satisfaction we hold on to that we did not have before. We have received the Living Water. We can, like the Samaritan woman, share that thirst quenching water by sharing Christ with others. We cannot live without water. I love how God the Father has created the words. Isn't it ironic...Jesus is that Water? It's fact.

Matthew 5:6 - Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.