{"id":14054,"date":"2021-02-05T21:00:28","date_gmt":"2021-02-06T04:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/john_3_22-36-copy\/"},"modified":"2021-02-01T00:27:57","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T07:27:57","slug":"john_4_1-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/john_4_1-14\/","title":{"rendered":"The Answer to Your Deepest Longing"},"content":{"rendered":"

John 4:1-14 Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is John 4:1-14.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

John 4:1-3 (NIV)\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>
\n1\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John,
\n2\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
\n3\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 1-3:\u00a0\u00a0Notice that Jesus was intentional and careful in his movements.<\/p>\n

John 4:4-6 (NIV)<\/em><\/strong>
\n4\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Now he had to go through Samaria.
\n5\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
\n6\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 4-6:\u00a0\u00a0On his way from Judea to Galilee, Jesus goes through Samaria.\u00a0\u00a0The people living in Samaria, called Samaritans, were a people of mixed Jewish and Gentile blood.\u00a0\u00a0The fact that Jesus was tired from the journey speaks to his humanity.\u00a0\u00a0Interestingly, it was Jesus\u2019 humanity that led him to this divine encounter in the verses that follow.<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0God can use ordinary situations in our lives like going to a coffee shop like Starbucks (today\u2019s equivalent of a well) or a restaurant and turn them into opportunities to be a blessing.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0So the next time you\u2019re in Starbucks, a restaurant, a bus, or any ordinary situation, be sensitive to what the Holy Spirit may want to do through you to bless others.<\/strong><\/p>\n

John 4:7-10 (NIV)<\/em><\/strong>
\n7\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 7-10:\u00a0\u00a0By talking to this Samaritan woman, Jesus was breaking some social conventions of the time.\u00a0\u00a0First, Jews did not associate with Samaritans (v9b).\u00a0\u00a0Second, according to many scholars, Jewish men apparently avoided speaking with women in public.\u00a0\u00a0Third, according to Bible commentator Gerald Borchert from the New American Commentary, intellectual Jewish rabbis tended to avoid speaking with blue collar \u201cpeople of the land\u201d about theological issues, seeing them as too simple to appreciate the finer details of their Jewish theology.<\/p>\n

Yet Jesus breaks through all these social conventions and treats this woman as a person, an individual.\u00a0\u00a0He meets her on her level, asking her for a drink.\u00a0\u00a0He also invites her curiosity by mentioning the idea of him offering her \u201cliving water\u201d (v10).<\/p>\n

What can we learn from this?\u00a0\u00a0Jesus was a bridge builder.\u00a0\u00a0He found commonality with people who were different from him.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Jesus did not allow racism, prejudice, tradition or different social backgrounds keep him from loving people, relating to people and reaching people.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Like Jesus, may you love people with courage, wisdom and compassion, and build bridges with them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

John 4:11-14 (NIV)<\/em><\/strong>
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 11-14:\u00a0\u00a0In an ingenious and natural way, Jesus had managed to steer the conversation with this woman toward spiritual matters with his curious statement about living water.\u00a0\u00a0Jesus knew that there is a thirst inside the human heart for something that is more than just physical.\u00a0 We all long for something eternal, something that lasts forever to secure us and satisfy us.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Jesus claims to have the answer to this problem.<\/p>\n

How does Jesus answer our deepest longing exactly?\u00a0\u00a0Jesus knows that what we all ultimately need is to be back in eternal and right relationship with God.\u00a0 So Jesus came to make that relationship possible by dying on the cross for our sins, by rising from the grave, and by giving us His Holy Spirit to live in us.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>By trusting in Jesus Christ and His Word, we receive salvation, forgiveness and God’s Holy Spirit, in whom we find living water that satisfies the deepest longing in our lives.<\/p>\n

Lord Jesus, I praise for being the greatest bridge builder of all time, the one who builds bridges with people like no other.\u00a0\u00a0I pray I would be a bridge builder like You, loving people who are different from me with courage, wisdom and compassion.\u00a0\u00a0You are also the only one who can satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart.\u00a0\u00a0Thank You for the living water we find in You.\u00a0\u00a0In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is John 4:1-14.\u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

John 4:1-3 (NIV)\u00a0
\n1\u00a0\u00a0The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John,
\n2\u00a0\u00a0although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
\n3\u00a0\u00a0When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.<\/p>\n

On verses 1-3:\u00a0\u00a0Notice that Jesus was intentional and careful in his movements.<\/p>\n

John 4:4-6 (NIV)
\n4\u00a0\u00a0Now he had to go through Samaria.
\n5\u00a0\u00a0So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
\n6\u00a0\u00a0Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.<\/p>\n

On verses 4-6:\u00a0\u00a0On his way from Judea to Galilee, Jesus goes through Samaria.\u00a0\u00a0The people living in Samaria, called Samaritans, were a people of mixed Jewish and Gentile blood.\u00a0\u00a0The fact that Jesus was tired from the journey speaks to his humanity.\u00a0\u00a0Interestingly, it was Jesus\u2019 humanity that led him to this divine encounter in the verses that follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14056,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14054"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14055,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14054\/revisions\/14055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}