As I scrolled through the sign-up list for this devotion series, I noticed that one name was left: Jesus/Savior. This made the decision easy for someone who’s very indecisive, especially when it comes to which name of God I’d “prefer” to write about. But then I got to thinking, why was this name in particular left for last grabs? Is it because we are so familiar with this name of God and God the Son? Or has the Christian radio made our ears numb to the sound of the name God gave his son? Or have we, in our sin and pride, created a hierarchy for which names we will call Jesus? Of course, I am speaking to my initial responses to Jesus/Savior. Is it possible I (and maybe you too) have lost awe and wonder at the name Jesus? Of the work he did to save us? Have we abandoned our first love for the functional saviors with which we try to satisfy our dry hearts?
In John 4, Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well, but he meets her in more ways than mere physical proximity. He meets her at the point where she was in a spiritual drought, searching to be restored and refilled by the man she was living with, and this wasn’t her first go-around with this functional savior (John 4:17-18). He meets her at the well, the location for physical restoration and hydration when “wearied from the journey” (John 4:6). He meets her at one of the hottest points in the day (John 4:6). He meets her in the midst of racial and ethnic division. He meets her and offers her the only rescue for her never-ending thirst: his living water (John 4:14). He replaces her desert heart with a river of living water welling up to eternal life, fulfilling her thirst not only on this earth, but more importantly, in the new heavens and new earth. For “whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never be thirsty again” or in the Greek, “will never be thirsty forever.”
As believers, we have the same verdict. Jesus met us at the well, the very place where we went to fix ourselves with the saviors we created for ourselves. He meets us and gives us of himself, the living water, that we may keep coming back to the well. That we would never thirst for the water that would only make us thirsty for our failing saviors. Jesus, our Savior, restored us to life, and is continuing to fill us with his presence day by day. Dear sister, return to the well. Whatever dry corner of your heart is quickly glancing over Jesus and Savior today, let his word wash over you, and draw you again into his presence that will always satisfy. And share that refreshing, saving truth of Jesus with dry, thirsty souls along the way.