OUR FATHER WHO MAKES LIVING WATER AVAILABLE TO US
The book of John chapter 4 verses 9 - 10 says this;
The 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.)
Jesus 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.”
The Lord Jesus and His disciples, travelling back to Gallilee from Judea, had to pass through Samaria and they came to the water well near the town of Sychar called Jacob's well.
The travellers came up to the well and as Jesus stopped to rest, disciples went off to the town to buy food.
Presently, a Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water for herself and Jesus, against custom, asked her for a drink of water.
The woman, surprised by the request, brought up the cultural norms of the area citing the tradition that forbid the Jews from associating with Samaritans and they were not even supposed to interact casually with each other.
Jesus responded to her objection by saying this;
“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.”
This response identified a hithertofore unknown commodity named 'living water'.
This water has these properties:
- It can be requested by people
- It is given to people by Jesus
- It permanently negates thirst (eternally)
- It becomes a spring in those who drink it
- It bubbles up continually in them
- It is the essence of eternal life
This bubbling spring within those to whom Jesus gives eternal life is what makes them able to eat all diets whether clean or unclean and by extension, associate with any type of people whether cultural norms forbid it or not.
The book of Leviticus chapter 11 lists the various types of clean and unclean animals and practices like touching dead animals but in verse 36, it is mentioned that a spring or a cistern of water cannot be contaminated by any types of unclean thing.
A spring, however, or a cistern for collecting water remains clean, but anyone who touches one of these carcasses is unclean.
It is therefore made clear why those to whom the Lord Jesus has given eternal life are exempt from the rules of contact with ceremonially unclean things.
They are themselves springs that continuosly bubble with living water and thus cannot be contaminated.
Amen.
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