Daily Devotions

John 4:10-15 – Thirsty?

Bible Verse of the Day

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will 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 will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
(John 4:10-15 ESV)

Do you ever wake up in the morning craving something to eat or drink?  Maybe you wake up craving that cup of liquified caffeine known as coffee before you can do anything else.  Or, maybe you’ve run a long distance race or worked heavy physical labor on a hot humid day, and if so, you know the meaning of thirst.  You know what it feels like to crave cold physical water.  That’s how this Samaritan woman felt.  It was the hottest part of the day, the well was deep, and she was thirsty.  She did not realize that this conversation with Jesus would become a significant object lesson for her and for us. Continue Reading →

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John 4:5-9 – Wrong Place, Wrong Person, Wrong Time

Bible Verse of the Day

So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
(John 4:5-9 ESV)

Jesus was on his way to Galilee and did something a Jewish guy would never, ever do- go through Samaria to get there. Although Samaria was the quickest route from Jerusalem to Galilee, Jews wanted to avoid Samaritans at all costs. Jews absolutely despised Samaritans because they were literally considered “half breeds”- a mixed race between ancient Jews and their past Assyrian invaders. Jews were not supposed to worship with Samaritans, much less speak to them or even touch them. Still Jesus seemed determined to go to Samaria to be at a well at “the sixth hour.” Continue Reading →

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Jonah 1:4-5 – Your Sin, Our Trouble

Bible Verse of the Day

But the LORD hurled a great wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his god. And they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. (Jonah 1:4-5 ESV)

The Bible is pretty clear that we all sin (Romans 3:23). Though some of these sins could be considered worse than others (1 John 5:16), they each still separate us from God. Some sins are out in the open, while others are hidden for years or even a lifetime. When we are sinning, we can get into the mindset that our sin isn’t hurting anybody else, or that it isn’t a big sin. In fact, Jonah probably wasn’t thinking that running away from God (Jonah 1:3) was going to affect anybody else; boy was he wrong. Continue Reading →

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Jeremiah 29:10-11 – False Warm Fuzzies

Bible Verse of the Day

“For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
(Jeremiah 29:10-11 ESV)

This text is perennially popular, making appearances on graduation cards, refrigerator magnets, and especially coffee table books. It’s a powerful promise to be sure, but often we focus only on verse eleven, and in doing so dilute the prophecy’s original intention. When we do this, we substitute our own meaning for God’s, and if we allow ourselves to become comfortable with this habit we are simply fabricating our own religion. Continue Reading →

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1 Corinthians 13:4-8 – Love: Displayed More Than Defined

Bible Verse of the Day

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.  1 Corinthians 13:4-8 ESV

Can you come up with a definition for love (that accurately describes what love is) in two or three sentences?

It’s not an easy task. No matter how we define love, our definition always seems to be lacking. Trying to define love can be like describing chocolate to a tribesman in sub-Saharan Africa who has never heard of nor tasted chocolate before. We may have trouble defining it, explaining it, and even finding it, but we know deep down inside that we need it.

In 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul wrote one of the most famous descriptions of love. Notice that he does not give a dictionary definition but instead a description of love displayed. Continue Reading →

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1 Corinthians 13:1-3 – Eros Love

Bible Verse of the Day

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 ESV

In 1 Corinthians 13 we find one of the most quoted sections of scripture—a beautiful description of love. But to get the complete picture, we need to understand the background of the people who were reading this.

In Corinthian culture, sex and love were often viewed as inseparable. If you grew up in this culture you were exposed to all types of belief systems and all kinds of religions and spirituality, especially the pantheon of Roman gods. The biggest and most obvious of all, though, was Aphrodite— her temple was the most prominent religious fixture in the city sitting atop the acropolis, some 1500 feet above the city. No matter where you were in Corinth you could see the temple of Aphrodite. Aphrodite was the goddess of love, but what kind of love? She was the goddess of eros love, or erotic love. In other words, she was the goddess of sex. Continue Reading →

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