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Day 8

THIRST FOR SPIRITUAL WATER!

• JESUS OFFERS WATER TO “THIRSTY SOULS”

GOD’S WORD:  Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”  They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”

“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.  Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.  Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true.  I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” (John 4:27-38, NIV)

REFLECTION-DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. What does Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well tell me about his ability “to satisfy my deepest spiritual thirst”?

2. What does Jesus’ explanation to the disciples tell me about his ability “to satisfy my deepest hunger” when I really discover and fulfill his mission with my individual life?

3. Do I feel satisfied that I really am “drinking deeply and feasting” on the Lord’s will for my life and individual ministry?

• JESUS OFFERS SPIRITUAL WATER “FREE OF COST”

GOD’S WORD:  The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!”

And let him who hears say, “Come!”

Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. (Revelation 22:17, NIV)

REFLECTION-DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. How does “the Spirit invite us to come with spiritual thirst and be filled” with the water of life?

2. If the bride of Christ is the Lord community of faith, how effective am I in “making the Lord’s spiritual invitation seem believable”?

3. Have I felt so spiritually filled that “I am convincing to unbelievers” as I invite them to come for a drink of the presence of Lord Jesus?

• DRINKING DEEPLY MUST NEVER BECOME JUST A “RELIGIOUS EXERCISE”

GOD’S WORD:  They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. (Psalm 36:8, NIV)

REFLECTION-DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. When have I felt “an unquenched thirst” for the presence of the Lord?

2. How did the “Lord quench my spiritual thirst” with rivers of delight by just being in his presence?

GOD’S WORD:  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? (Psalm 42:2, NIV)

REFLECTION-DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Was there ever a time when I felt a spiritual thirst for the Lord “like it might feel walking across a burning desert”?

2. Where are some places I may have “gone to meet the Lord” when he did quench my thirst?

3. “How did the Lord quench my thirst” when I felt spiritually and desperately dry for him?

GOD’S WORD:  Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:25-26, NIV)

REFLECTION-DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. When was there a time when I felt I had “nothing and nobody” but the Lord to sustain me?

2. When have I “felt desperately dependent on the Lord,” like I was going to die without His presence and blessing?

GOD’S WORD:  Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men,  for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.

(Psalm 107:8-9, NIV)

REFLECTION-DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. When was the “unfailing love of the Lord enough to sustain me” in a time when I could count on nobody else?

2. Was there ever a time when I “felt completely satisfied” in my relationship with the Lord?

3. Does spiritual satisfaction depend upon my “sense of need or upon my deep personal sense of the Lord’s care” for me?

GOD’S WORD:  I spread out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. (Psalm 143:6, NIV)

REFLECTION-DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Do I ever “desperately reach out for the presence of the Lord”?

2. When was the last time “my soul felt fully satisfied” with the presence of the Lord?

GOD’S WORD:  Yes, Lord , walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.  My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. (Isaiah 26:8-9, NIV)

REFLECTION-DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Do I deeply “beg for a fresh walk” in the ways of the Lord?

2. Is living and walking in the presence Lord really the “deepest desire of my heart”?

GOD’S WORD: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.  Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

(Isaiah 55:1-2, NIV)

REFLECTION-DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Do I really believe that spiritual fulfillment is a “gift from the Lord” rather than something I must earn or merit with religious exercises?

2. What is some of the “bread” I might buy, at great cost, which does not satisfy my deepest needs?

GOD’S WORD:   “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land —not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord .  Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it. (Amos 8:11-12, NIV)

REFLECTION-DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Do I really hunger for the word of the Lord, “feeling as desperate as if there were a famine” in the land?

2. What would be the spiritual evidence in my life, if I were “really hungering for the word of the Lord”?

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