Ps 42:1-2 (NKJV)

As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?

Keep these words in mind, then let’s go to John 4.

At this point, Jesus is in the early phase of his ministry. After his baptism in the Jordan River, he has been preaching and his disciples have been baptizing, yet few details are known to us apart from him turning water into wine, and meeting with Nicodemus in Jerusalem for the Passover feast. His ministry is fully centered in Judea in south Israel, where he ministers parallell to John the Baptist. About six-seven month after his baptism, a significant change happens. Jesus moves from Judea in the south to Galilee in the north. What is about to happen there is nothing short of a spiritual explosion - the sick will be healed, the possessed will be delivered, dead will rise. Yet, on his way from the south to the north, and into this mighty outpouring of the miraculous power of God, he meets a person. And this encounter will prove to be very significant for this upcoming phase, and will also give us an important understanding about how we receive Gods continuous blessings into our lives.

John 4:1-15a

Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But He needed to go through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. 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? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water”

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We need to understand that this women really had everything against her. From the

human perspective of that day, she was the least likely to receive anything from God

because there were at least three major issues:

1. She was a Samaritan.

Quick summary of the development of the Kingdom of Israel.

• David/Solomon: a united kingdom
• Division into Northern Kingdom (Israel) and Southern Kingdom (Judah)
• Eventually both Kingdoms end up in captivity in Assyria (Israel) and Babylon (Judah)
• Assyrian king takes the best out of Israel to Assyria, then deports the worst fromAssyria into Israel (2 Kings 17 for reference)
• These Assyrians, now living in Israel, added the God of Israel to the Assyrian Gods, making them an abomination to the jews (’The Lord your God, the Lord is one’).
• At the time Jesus, the descendants of the Assyrians were living in Samaria, central Israel, and were referred to as Samaritans. They were despised and avoided by all jews. Still, we read that Jesus had to go through Samaria. He did not for geographical nor cultural reasons, but because the Spirit led him to! Sometimes true about us as well - God will speak and we need to do something unusual. Simply by being a Samaritan, this women was already considered an impossible case.

2. She was a woman.

The teaching of Aristotele, that had shaped the Roman time and culture, placed women somewhere in between men and slaves. Women are almost never mentioned in literature from this time, and even more rarely in positive terms (note, the disciples later surprised that Jesus even speaks to a woman).

3. She had an immoral lifestyle.

Jesus tells her that the man she is living with is not her husband, and that she has hadfive others before him.

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Still, she had one thing that outweighed all these ’problems’ and seemingly impossible obstacles. And if God can only find this element inside of you, nothing will be able to keep you away from his blessings, nothing will keep you from seeing His perfect will come to Pass.

She was thirsty!

“Sir, give me this water” is what makes all the difference!What did we read right at the beginning? ’My soul thirsts for God, for the living God’. This is the attitude that turned a young shepherd boy that no-one believed in, into the best king Israel ever had. This is the attitude that turned a Samaritan, immoral women into the first evangelist in the Gospels, leading a whole city to faith in Jesus. Being thirsty doesn’t have to be about panic, desperation, cramp. It is simply about wanting more. About being thankful for what you have but still realizing that I haven’t yet seen all I can see, haven’t yet heard all I can hear, haven’t yet done all I can do - I am thirsty for more!

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In John 5 there is a story about a pool in Jerusalem, called the Bethesda. The Bible said sometimes an angel of the Lord would come and stir the water of this pool. I asked the Spirit of God what he wanted to do today, and he said: ’I want to stir up the water, stir up the thirst for my presence, stir up the hunger for miracles, stir up the expectation for my power…’

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My testimony

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Bible School

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John 7:37

On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone (has the right nationality? No. If anyone has the right sex? No. If anyone has reached the right level of perfection? No. But if anyone) thirsts, let him come to Me and Drink.

(only bold text on screen)

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