Plug into the Living Water

John 4:10

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

In this passage, Jesus was resting by a well in Samaria. He was waiting for someone to come by to give him a drink of water from this well. Eventually, a woman came during the middle of the day when it was rather hot. After talking for a bit, Jesus had told her that if she had realized that he was the living water, she would have asked him for a drink instead.

From this verse, we see that Jesus calls himself “living water.” How can we apply this truth into our life?

This story occurs in the region of Samaria, which was a desert area. Because of this, there is naturally a lack of water. It would be hard for any plants and life in general to grow here, so it is rather significant that Jesus would use the term “living water” in such an area.

Water was very appreciated in Samaria. Visitors would call water “a gift of God” when they received it. In areas of the desert where there was water, it would be called an oasis, which would have plants growing around the water. Even though the area would be under the same hot sun and surrounded by dry land, plants would be able to grow because of the water.

So water had very close ties and significance to life in this area.

In our own spiritual lives, if it is dry like a desert, we would need this living water. As Jesus said, “everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.”

So if we feel dry, we need to think about what we need. Jesus would be our source of water, and we would need to ”plug into Jesus” to access this water.

PD had some experiences trying to fix different kinds of things that may help us understand better.

He tried to fix a sprinkler system, and he started with turning off the water valve. After he did some fixes, he tried to test it, but realized it didn’t work because he never turned the water back  on.

He also tried to fix his TV that had issues with flickering. He had unplugged it and did some work. After he was done, he tried to test it. He realized it wouldn’t work because he never plugged it back in.

Similarly, in our lives, we need to check if we are plugged into Jesus.

When we feel dry, we need to think about the cause of the issue. Do you feel like you are doing too much ministry work? Do you have problems with others? Are you busy with your career?

These may be part of the issue. However, we should really see if we are plugged into the source of Jesus Christ. If we are, we will have a different perspective on everything we do in life.

PD shared a story about a father and his daughter. The governor would kill them if they were known to be worshippers of Jesus, so the father asked his daughter to deny the faith just once in order to live. However, once asked by the governor, the daughter did not deny God, which led to her persecution and death, but she was still happy. This can only be possible because she was plugged into Christ. The difficulty of the situation did not hinder her joy. In the same way, if we are plugged into Christ, we will also be able to respond similarly in our circumstances.

Discussion Questions:

• Are you plugged into Jesus? How is it affecting your life?

• What causes you to get unplugged from Jesus?