wells or springs

Answered Jesus and said to her, “if you knew the gratuitous gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Give me to drink’, you would have asked Him and He would have given to you water which is alive.”  She says to Him, “Sir, you do not have anything with which to draw, and the well is deep.  From where therefore do you have this water, this living water?  As for you, you are not greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well, and he himself drank from it, and his sons and his cattle, are you?”  Answered Jesus and said to her, “Everyone who keeps on drinking of this water shall thirst again.  But whoever takes a drink of the water which I shall give him, shall positively not thirst, no , never, but the water which I shall give him shall become in him a spring of water gushing up into life eternal.”

OK…

I have to confess to you that this has not been my experience.  Oh, i have moments when i feel as though something is gushing up inside me that feels like God, but then it goes away.

Know why?

I drank the wrong water.

I drank the water of salvation.  The water of “if I believe in Jesus, I will live forever.”  The water of “if I tweek my life a little here and there, I will be a disciple.”

It was the wrong water.

I drank the water of me.  blah blah blah, me me me, blah blah blah blah, me me me.  This is the water of human love… self love.

The water of human love will never satisfy because it has itself as it’s ultimate object.

The water Jesus is offering is the water of Father’s Love!  The love that only gives.  Love that takes no thought for it’s own life.  Love that leads to a cross.

Father’s love is a free gift.  It will become a spring of water gushing up to life eternal!

Did you get that?

It is a spring.  It never stops.

The electricity can go off…

It keeps flowing!

The sun can go down…

It keeps flowing!

I can get tired…

It keeps flowing!

It keeps refreshing!

It keeps giving forever and ever!

The water of human love, of self love drives us back to the well moment by moment.  We are continually focused on slaking our own thirst for more.

God’s love is greater than the human body, the human will, the human condition…

It’s why Jesus was able to say to his disciples a few moments later “I have food you know nothing about”

Wait a minute!  Jesus was at the well because he was so hungry he couldn’t go on!  His disciples left him and went for food!  He was hungry!

And then he could say “I already ate”… ?

It’s because Father’s love sustains us in every way.

I don’t know this from experience.

But I will.

I am drinking different water today.

The thing is this…

I cannot drink from the well and the spring both.

I have to fill in the well, cap it, weld it shut.

“You cannot serve two masters, either you will love the one and hate the other or hold firmly to one and despise the other”

That is why I have to die.

“…unless the grain of wheat, having fallen into the earth, die, it itself remains alone.”

That is why the cross.

“Assuming that anyone desires to come after me as a follower of mine, let him disregard his own interests, and let him at once and once for all pick up and carry his cross day after day, and let him take the same road with me that I take as a habit of life.”

That is how it becomes a spring, a resurrection.

“…whoever will declare a sentence of death upon his soul-life for my sake, this one shall save it.”

Here’s to death!

Enjoy new life!

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