January 26
Preparing for a Wonderful Message
“And He must needs go through Samaria.” John 4:4
Read John 4
The Lord Jesus had left Judea and had gone back to Galilee because the Pharisees wanted nothing to do with Him. As the Lord traveled to Galilee, we read these striking words in verse 4: “He must needs go through Samaria.” Notice that this verse does not say that He was forced to, but that He “must needs go” to fulfill His Father’s will.
So the Lord Jesus walked with His disciples to Sychar, to Jacob’s well, in the middle of the day. Most inhabitants of the town would have been home during the heat of the day. Yet there was a woman who came to Jacob’s well to fetch water. She did this so that she would not meet other people. She knew that she was the subject of much discussion because she had been married to five different husbands and was now living with a man who was not her husband.
When she came to the well she saw a Jew sitting beside it. He asked her for some water, even though Jews normally had nothing to do with Samaritans. Normally, the Jews would make a large detour around Samaria to avoid having any contact with its inhabitants. So when Christ asked her for water, she was surprised. And when He began to speak to her about “living water,” she was intrigued. “Whosoever drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But, the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” The woman did not understand what this Man wanted, but all the while the Lord was working in her heart.
Why was this woman so perplexed?
This devotional was taken from “The Time of Your Life” a daily devotional published by the Youth & Educational Committee of the FRC. To order a printed copy of this book, contact: bookorders@frcna.org.