The Daily Guide. grow. pray. study. The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection of Leawood, Kansas, United States for Wednesday, 13 April 2016 - "Thirsty for a second chance"
Daily Scripture: John 4:11 She said to him, “Sir, you don’t have a bucket, and the well is deep; so where do you get this ‘living water’? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Ya‘akov, are you? He gave us this well and drank from it, and so did his sons and his cattle.” 13 Yeshua answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I will give him will never be thirsty again! On the contrary, the water I give him will become a spring of water inside him, welling up into eternal life!”
15 “Sir, give me this water,” the woman said to him, “so that I won’t have to be thirsty and keep coming here to draw water.”
Reflection Questions:Jesus’ offer of “living water” (the term commonly meant the freshest, cleanest running water, not stagnant water that had stood in a cistern) was intriguing. But the woman at first showed skepticism: “Where would you get this living water?” (verse 11) Her doubts didn’t discourage Jesus. He described the spiritual water he offered in such appealing terms that the woman, thirsty for a fresh start, responded, “Give me this water!” (verse 15).
- The Message captures the idea behind the phrase “living water” well, having Jesus say in verse 13, “The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life.” When did you most recently sense a surge of God’s endless life within your heart? How can you regularly “fill your cup” with Jesus' living water?
- Pastor Bruce Milne noted how naturally Jesus spoke with this woman: “Jesus is clearly ‘at ease’ with her, which frees her to confront her deepest needs.”1 Who are the people who, because of beliefs or lifestyle, make you uneasy? How can the example of Jesus’ conversation with the woman at the well help you find ways to relate more naturally and comfortably to them?
Lord Jesus, you told Nicodemus in John 3 that you had not come to condemn the world. You didn’t condemn the woman at the well, and you don’t condemn me. Thank you! Please teach me how to relate as you did. Amen.
1 Bruce Milne, The Message of John. Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993, p. 86.Insights from Kari Burgess
Kari Burgess is a Program Director for the ShareChurch team, handling promotion and marketing for all of the conferences held at Resurrection, as well as registration and coordinating hospitality volunteers.
Have you ever been dehydrated? Some of the most common signs of dehydration are: increased thirst, dry mouth, weakness or dizziness, confusion, and fainting. And did you know, if you feel thirsty, you are already behind on your water intake?
The key to staying hydrated is to stay ahead of it by drinking plenty of water early in the day, continuing throughout the day and increasing water intake when exercising. Experts also recommend drinking primarily water and to limit the amount of caffeinated beverages, which can be dehydrating (not great news to us coffee enthusiasts). As we work to listen to our bodies, we react to what our body needs by taking in water or nutrients.
I love what my study Bible says about our physical and spiritual needs in relation to our story today: “Many spiritual functions parallel physical functions. As our bodies hunger and thirst, so do our souls. But our souls need spiritual food and water…Why then should we deprive our souls? The living Word, Jesus Christ, and the written Word, the Bible, can satisfy our hungry and thirsty souls.”
The woman at the well was completely dehydrated, completely depleted. She was in a critical state, and had been ignoring the cry of her soul for spiritual fulfillment. When Jesus offers “a spring of water welling up to eternal life,” she is desperate to take it. It seems the woman confuses the two kinds of water, perhaps because she was unfamiliar with spiritual life. At first, she is interested in the water Jesus is offering because she mistakenly thinks she won’t need to return each day to the well to draw water.
Not only was she confusing the physical with the spiritual, but she was also mistaken about the need to come back daily in a spiritual sense. When Jesus says “whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst,” he doesn’t mean you drink of it once and that’s it. We need to continually go back to the well of living water Jesus offers and feed our souls with it. Our faith is not passive. We need to be spiritually fed in order to keep the fountain of living water flowing in our souls. Otherwise we will become spiritually dehydrated. Jesus is offering Living Water all the time, continuously, and we need to be actively drinking from this well.
Download the GPS App
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
Have you ever been dehydrated? Some of the most common signs of dehydration are: increased thirst, dry mouth, weakness or dizziness, confusion, and fainting. And did you know, if you feel thirsty, you are already behind on your water intake?
The key to staying hydrated is to stay ahead of it by drinking plenty of water early in the day, continuing throughout the day and increasing water intake when exercising. Experts also recommend drinking primarily water and to limit the amount of caffeinated beverages, which can be dehydrating (not great news to us coffee enthusiasts). As we work to listen to our bodies, we react to what our body needs by taking in water or nutrients.
I love what my study Bible says about our physical and spiritual needs in relation to our story today: “Many spiritual functions parallel physical functions. As our bodies hunger and thirst, so do our souls. But our souls need spiritual food and water…Why then should we deprive our souls? The living Word, Jesus Christ, and the written Word, the Bible, can satisfy our hungry and thirsty souls.”
The woman at the well was completely dehydrated, completely depleted. She was in a critical state, and had been ignoring the cry of her soul for spiritual fulfillment. When Jesus offers “a spring of water welling up to eternal life,” she is desperate to take it. It seems the woman confuses the two kinds of water, perhaps because she was unfamiliar with spiritual life. At first, she is interested in the water Jesus is offering because she mistakenly thinks she won’t need to return each day to the well to draw water.
Not only was she confusing the physical with the spiritual, but she was also mistaken about the need to come back daily in a spiritual sense. When Jesus says “whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst,” he doesn’t mean you drink of it once and that’s it. We need to continually go back to the well of living water Jesus offers and feed our souls with it. Our faith is not passive. We need to be spiritually fed in order to keep the fountain of living water flowing in our souls. Otherwise we will become spiritually dehydrated. Jesus is offering Living Water all the time, continuously, and we need to be actively drinking from this well.
Download the GPS App
The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
13720 Roe Avenue
Leawood, Kansas 66224, United States
913.897.0120
---------------------
---------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment