Young People's Group

A Fountain of Living Water

by Mitchell Tan
February 18, 2021

THE THIRSTING OF THE SOUL

The Lord Jesus saw the deeper needs of the soul that most people are often ignorant of. Everyone knows what it means to be physically thirsty. But not everyone understands the concept of the thirsting of the soul. There is this spiritual dryness within us that needs to be quenched in a way that only our Lord Jesus can. When our Saviour was in Samaria, He sought to reach out to a Samaritan woman who had such a problem. The Samaritans were a people greatly despised by the Jews and vice versa. The Lord sought to show grace and love to this woman by reaching out to her and asking her for water. Of course, He was seeking to deal with the deeper need of soul thirst.

THE GIFT OF LIVING WATERS THAT SATISFIES THE SOUL

As the Lord broke racial and gender barriers, He sought to explain to her the gift of living waters.

1. THE SOURCE OF LIVING WATERS

“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.”
John 4:10

The Samaritan woman did not ask for this gift of living water simply because she did not understand it nor did she know the giver of this gift. The source of living water is God Himself. It comes through having knowledge and faith in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is also the need to know what the gift of God signifies. The imagery of living water represents the eternal life that we can have through Christ. This life comes through grace and is appropriated by faith. It is a gift that has to be humbly asked for. It cannot be earned by deeds. If the Samaritan woman really knew the gift of God and the Lord Jesus for who He is, she would have readily asked Him for this living water.

2. THE SUPPLY OF LIVING WATERS

“Who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst.”
John 4:13-14

The Samaritan woman raised the issue of where this living water was from. She compared it to the water that was drawn from Jacob’s well (John 4:11-12). Obviously, in her mind, she was still thinking of physical water. The Lord Jesus spoke of how physical water would only satisfy temporarily. However, when a person drinks from the spiritual waters that He gives, he overwhelmingly does not need to turn to any other source. The Lord’s spiritual well is significantly “deeper” than any physical well. Its supply of living water is unending. It will quench our spiritual thirst indefinitely.

3. THE SPRINGING UP OF LIVING WATERS

“But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
John 4:14

Having living water is more than just quenching our soul thirst. It can become in us an overflowing fountain of spiritual life. That person’s life can be filled with so much spiritual water that it springs out of him. There is a constant flow of vibrancy that comes out of him and he becomes a source of life to others. The Samaritan woman became a “well” of life towards others. She went to the men in the city and spoke to them of the Lord. Let’s also seek to understand and know the Lord Jesus and the living water that He gives. Let’s ask for it and seek to find within us a fountain of life.

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