It's a miracle my wife made it through college. No, not because of her grades. You say, "Yeah, well probably because she was dating you." No, that's not the reason either - because of finances. Halfway through, her parent's financial help suddenly stopped. It wasn't because they didn't want to help her through college. Suddenly they just didn't have it. Her folks were running a small dairy farm at the time, a little family farm, and they needed a well desperately. So they sank most of their money into digging a well. A drought came and the well came up dry. Wells have a way of doing that.
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. A great story; one I love, and I'm going to begin reading in verse 13. You'll 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, and she has a 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 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 to meet her need. She'd been doing that for a long time emotionally and spiritually as well as physically. You see, emotionally, I think her well was men. She kept trying to quench her incurable heart thirst with male attention. "Maybe this relationship... maybe this will finally do it." But she always needed one more, and the one more never did it.
Jesus proposed something better. Jesus 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 we depend on for our emotional life. Maybe your well is people's applause. Maybe it's another career conquest, buying things that make you feel secure, or maybe it's really depending on one of your children, your position, your power, 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, you're always driving for more, always 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." Complete. Not always having to look for something to fill me up, make me feel loved, make me feel important, 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. 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 be away from Him. But it was His choice to do whatever it took to bring us back. It took Him taking my hell for my sin so I could be with Him for time and eternity.
And today, He's knocking on the door of your heart, giving you this chance to finally be complete in Him. Would you tell Him today, "Jesus, I'm Yours."And let me invite you to check out our website. I've tried to lay out there as simply as I could in non-religious language how you can be sure you belong to Him. It's ANewStory.com. We'd be honored if you'd pay us a visit.
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.