{"id":30656,"date":"2024-04-11T22:00:16","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T05:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/john-3_22-36-copy\/"},"modified":"2024-03-26T22:19:45","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T05:19:45","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 \u00a0 \u00a0(CLICK HERE FOR\u00a0BIBLE VERSES)<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is John 4:1-14.\u00a0 I encourage you to read the passage yourself first and see what you can glean with the Holy Spirit\u2019s help, then read the GAME sharing below.\u00a0 Let’s go!<\/p>\n

John 4:1-3 (NIV)<\/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.<\/p>\n

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

John 4:4-6 (NIV)<\/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.<\/p>\n

On verses 4-6:\u00a0 On his way from Judea to Galilee, Jesus goes through Samaria.\u00a0 The people living in Samaria, called Samaritans, were a people of mixed Jewish and Gentile blood.\u00a0 The fact that Jesus was tired from the journey speaks to his humanity.\u00a0 Interestingly, 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)<\/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.”<\/p>\n

On verses 7-10:\u00a0 By talking to this Samaritan woman, Jesus was breaking some social conventions of the time.\u00a0 First, Jews did not associate with Samaritans (v9b).\u00a0 Second, according to many scholars, Jewish men apparently avoided speaking with women in public.\u00a0 Third, 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 He meets her on her level, asking her for a drink.\u00a0 He 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 He found commonality with people who were different from him.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Jesus did not allow racism, prejudice, tradition or different social backgrounds to 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)<\/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.”<\/p>\n

On verses 11-14:\u00a0 In 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 Jesus 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.\u00a0 Jesus claims to have the answer to this problem.\u00a0 How does Jesus answer this problem exactly?\u00a0 It\u2019s because Jesus 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 By trusting in Jesus Christ and His life giving promises, by receiving Jesus into our lives and being filled with His Holy Spirit, we find living water that satisfies the deepest longing in our lives.<\/p>\n

Lord Jesus, I praise You for being the greatest bridge builder of all time, the one who builds bridges with people like no other.\u00a0 I pray I would be a bridge builder like You, loving people who are different from me with courage, wisdom and compassion.\u00a0 You are also the only one who can satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart.\u00a0 Thank You for the living water we find in You.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2021 Justin Lim. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs,<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is John 4:1-14.\u00a0 I encourage you to read the passage yourself first and see what you can glean with the Holy Spirit\u2019s help, then read the GAME sharing below.\u00a0 Let’s go!
\n\u00a0
\nJohn 4:1-3 (NIV)
\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.
\n\u00a0
\nOn verses 1-3:\u00a0 Notice that Jesus was intentional and careful in his movements.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nJohn 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","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30656","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\/30656","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=30656"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30669,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30656\/revisions\/30669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}