Short ECWA Daily Devotions for 2022

TUESDAY, AUGUST 30, 2022

TEXT: John 4:1-15

1. When Jesus knew that the Pharisees heard He was making and baptizing more disciples than John

2. (though Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were),

3. He left Judea and went again to Galilee.

4. He had to travel through Samaria,

5. so He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph.

6. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, worn out from His journey, sat down at the well. It was about six in the evening.

7. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. “Give Me a drink,” Jesus said to her,

8. for His disciples had gone into town to buy food.

9. “How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked Him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

10. Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink.’ you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.”

11. “Sir,” said the woman, “You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’?

12. You aren’t greater than our father Jacob are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”

13. Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again.

14. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again – ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.”

15. “Sir,” the woman said to Him, “give me this water so I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

(Holmans CS Version Holy Bible)

TOPIC: BREAKING CULTURAL BARRIERS

The Jews living in what was referred to as the ‘Northern Kingdom’ or ‘Samaria’ were never accepted by their fellow brothers from the ‘Southern Kingdom’ – Judah/Jerusalem. Reason being that Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar took away the Jews into captivity in Babylon and put gentiles in their homeland who invariably intermarried and thus corrupted their original Jewish ancestry.

It led to serious enmity that those from Judah could never pass through Samaria to the North. They preferred the long route.

Jesus, in this instance, demonstrates that the salvation of a soul must be valued above any cultural or traditional barriers. The Church in Africa must resist our various cultural or traditional rules that stand against the gospel at all costs.

QUESTION: What hinders you from sharing the message of salvation – the gospel – to those around you?

PRAYER: Thank You, dear Lord Jesus Christ, that You found and accepted me despite my sinful state. Help me not to deny those You bring my way, Amen.