Living Water

John 4

Once when Jesus and his disciples were traveling from Judea to Galilee, they stopped in a town in Samaria called Sychar. The sun was directly overhead when Jesus sat down next to a well to wait while his disciples went to find some food. He had not been there long when a woman from Samaria approached the well to get water.

"Will you get a drink for me?" Jesus asked her.

The woman turned to him, startled. "You are a Jew, but I am a Samaritan," she said. "Are you certain you want me to give you a drink?" (Jews usually would not even talk to Samaritans.)

"If you only knew who I am and what God’s great gifts are, you would have asked me to give you living water," Jesus said.

"Sir, this well is deep," she said. "Without something to draw water with, where will you get living water?"

Jesus replied, "If you drink water from this well, you will be thirsty again. But if I give you water, you will never be thirsty."

The woman said, "Please sir, give me some of that water. I get so tired of coming here every day to draw from the well, "She didn’t understand that by "living water" Jesus meant the truth about himself.

Jesus said to her, "Go get your husband and bring him back here."

The woman blushed. "I don’t have a husband," she told Jesus.

"You are right," Jesus said kindly. "You don’t have a husband – you have had five husbands, and now you live with a man who isn’t your husband."

She looked at him in amazement. "Sir, you must be a prophet to have known this." Then she said, "Where should we worship?"

"Soon," Jesus said, "true worshipers will not worship God in a temple or on a mountainside, but they will worship in spirit and in truth."

"I know that the Messiah is coming," the woman said. "He will explain everything when he comes."

Then Jesus said to her, "I am the Messiah."

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(From Classic Bible Stories, A Family Treasury retold by Lise Caldwell (c) 1998 Standard Publishing.  Used by permission.  This book may be purchased at your local Christian Bookstore or from Standard Publishing (800-543-1301).