September 1, 2022
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It's a miracle my wife made it through college. Not because of her grades. I'm talking about because of finances. Halfway through, her parent's financial help suddenly stopped. It wasn't because they didn't want to help, they just didn't have it. See, they were running a small dairy farm at the time, and they needed a well desperately. So Dad sank most of his money into digging a well. The drought came. The well came up dry. You know what? Wells have a way of doing that don't they?
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Satisfying Your Thirsty Soul."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from John 4. It's a great story; I love this. You may recognize this as an account of Jesus' trip through Samaria where He met a Samaritan woman who had come to draw water from the well. She had a pretty sordid background; she'd been pretty busy with the men in town apparently, and she's got the reputation that goes with it.
Now Jesus says to her after offering her living water, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again." I can almost picture Him pointing to the well. "But whoever drinks the water that 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.'
The woman said to Him, "'Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to come here and draw water.' He told her, 'Go call your husband and come back.' 'Well, I have no husband' she replied. Jesus said to her, 'You're right when you say you have no husband. The fact is you've had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.'"
This lady went to a well that day just to meet her need. She'd been doing that for a long time emotionally and spiritually as well as physically. I think emotionally her well was men. She kept trying to quench her incurable heart thirst with male attention. "Maybe this relationship will do it... maybe this will do it." She always needed one more, and that one more never did it apparently.
Jesus proposed something better. He said, "I want to give you an internal life source that will allow you to finally relax, and end your search, and have peace." See, we all have wells that we depend on for our emotional life. Maybe your well is people's applause and approval, or another career conquest, or buying things that make you feel secure. Or maybe it's really depending on one of your children, or your position, your money.
But there's a problem with wells. First of all, they dry up during droughts and they leave you adrift. Secondly, you always need another shot, you're always restless, you're never filled, always like that lady - thirsty again.
The Bible uses this wonderful word to describe the result of beginning a personal relationship with Jesus. In Colossians 2:10, it says that with Jesus you're "complete in Him." Not always having to look for something to fill me up, make me feel loved, make me feel important or satisfied. The reason only Jesus can do that is, according to the Bible, we are "created by Him and for Him" but we haven't lived for Him. We've lived pretty much for ourselves. Right? So we're chronically restless because there's this missing person in our life. The person we were made by and made for. It wasn't His choice that we're away from Him. No, it was His choice, though, to do whatever it took to bring us back. It took Him all the way to a cross to take my hell for my sin so I could be with Him forever.
And today, you know what? He may be knocking on the door of your heart, giving you this chance to finally be complete in Him. Just tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm Yours." Let me urge you to go to our website. There's a simple, non-religious explanation there of how you can be sure you belong to Him. Go to ANewStory.com.
Jesus wants to make you secure by putting your life source inside you. The key to peace, the end of roller coaster living, is to depend on the spring of water welling up inside of you. And that's the identity Christ can give you.
So, be sure you know who you are without your wells. They go dry. They're never enough. That's the trouble with wells.