That woman left her house to fetch water and satisfy her thirst for another day. She returned with water that quenched her thirst forever. My brother, I want to stay with you for just two verses of this well‑known story, because they hold a truth that many Christians have not yet fully experienced: Christ did not come only to satisfy our thirst. He came to wash us, from the inside and continuously.
A request that left the Samaritan woman confused
Jesus asked that woman for water, and she was confused. He didn’t even have a vessel to draw water from the well, and they were from completely different peoples. "Being a Jew, do you ask me, a Samaritan, for water?" The contact should not have happened. Then Jesus said the words that would change her life:
"Jesus affirmed to her: Whoever drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I give him will never be thirsty again; on the contrary, the water I give him will become a spring welling up within him for eternal life." (John 4.13-14)
When I read this text, it feels like I am watching a movie. She is stunned, bewildered: how so? This man has no vessel and says he has a water that will become a spring inside me? At that moment, she had no capacity to understand. Yet she believed, and received the water that Jesus gave her.
A change that happens from within
Every religion seems to work on the outside. That is why I do not consider a life with God to be religion. What Jesus said to that woman was, in other words: if this water of mine enters you, your life will be completely different. Christ comes into us and, after being in our lives, changes everything around us.
The apostle Paul explains this best: spiritual things are discerned spiritually (1 Corinthians 2.14). And you have probably noticed it in daily life. In a bank line, if you say "I believe in God," almost no one reacts; most will answer that they also believe. But say "Jesus is my Lord and my Savior" and you will hear the most varied reactions around you. Do you know why? Because Jesus came to bring such a radical change that when someone speaks his name and He is within them, no one remains indifferent.
My father taught us, at the kitchen table: from the interior of the believer will flow rivers of living water (John 7.38). Christ is the source. He is everything in us.
From thirst to the end of fear
I know this water by experience. For a period of my life I was a person full of doubts, uncertainties and, especially, fear. I dreamed of eternity with fear of it and woke up with fear of it. Until the day I heard Reverend Alexandre Ximenez preach on 2 Corinthians 4 and surrendered to Christ. It was in the 80s, and I still remember what he preached.
I was converted on a Sunday. On Monday, it seemed everything had changed around me. I began to see things I had not seen and to learn what I had never sought to learn. I was not perfect, but I never again feared tomorrow, nor doubted eternity, nor dreaded death. Many people who were my enemies in youth are now my brothers in Christ. In other words, the source worked.
The same happened with the Samaritan woman. She, who had been a source of other things, even sin, returned to the city and led countless men to hear the One who has the water that, to use a phrase from my own land, "kills thirst once and for all." She became an evangelist, a heavenly agent. That is what Christ continues to do: from the moment we are linked to Him, we become vessels of the same water to others. Paul says we are ambassadors who bring to everyone the message of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5.20).
Continuously washed
The risk we all face is becoming merely religious evangelicals: we go to worship when we can and, tomorrow, we return to the same carnal, ordinary life. Our life cannot revert to what it was before conversion.
And I am not talking about baptism, because baptismal water does not purify anyone. What purifies us from all sin is the blood of Jesus (1 John 1.7). I am speaking of Christ as water, as an eternal source that, besides killing thirst, washes and purifies us. And it does so continuously.
Some say that after accepting Jesus, grace is so great that a person can live in sin and it’s all right. I cannot believe that. But I do believe that the same power that transformed that woman is constantly at work: forgiveness, washing, purification and the erasing of sin, from the moment we repent, confess, and cease to sin.
My wife was just talking about observing our lives and seeing what we are planting each day. What is our procedure when we err, when we misunderstand, when we fail? The remedy is to run to Christ’s example. Go to the source, cleanse yourself through repentance and confession, and come out clean. That is Christianity: the certainty that, walking the biblical path, there will always be forgiveness in Christ.
Christ is everything, and the source becomes a river
Christ is everything. He is the water that quenches thirst, that washes, that purifies. He is the bread of life. He is the way, the truth and the life. What religion or philosophy offers someone who satisfies everything and fills everything? Some say, "after doing everything wrong, now he is holy." He is not holy because he did wrong, but because he found what is right. And the one who is everything also sanctifies, justifies and purifies. The Bible says that God loved us in Christ when we were still his enemies (Romans 5.8-10). He is the only one who can be both lamb and lion.
Therefore there is no reason to fear the future. Do not bring that religious story that tomorrow belongs to God. Not: tomorrow God is already there. Whoever is allied with Him will be awaited by Him tomorrow. And where He is there is peace and joy.
Return with me to the text: the water that Jesus gives "will be a source in him." A source is perennial, constant, continuous, always there. And these springs, as we say here in Rio Grande do Sul, add up. Your source joins that of your wife or husband, of your Christian children, of the brothers and sisters in faith, and together they become a river of living water, spreading life wherever we go.
To live this word
That woman went to fetch water for the day and received water for eternity. Think of your testimony and live this:
- Remember where God took you from. You were lost, thirsty for everything, and you were found.
- Do not settle for religiosity. Observing rites is not the same as drinking from the source.
- Return to the source when you fail. Repent, confess and let go of sin. Forgiveness is available every day.
- Stop feeding on fear. God is already in tomorrow.
- Let the water flow. Combine your source with others and bring the word of reconciliation to those still thirsty.
My brother, my sister: you cannot let the flow of this source that Christ installed in your life stop. Drink, be washed and let a river spring from this source.
