Transformed in His Image

Are you familiar with the story of the Samaritan woman told in John 4:1-42? Jesus is sitting by the well. His disciples have gone into town for food. It’s the middle of the day—hot and not when women usually come to the well for water. But this woman does; suggesting she is an outcast, not welcomed to go to the well early in the cool morning with the other women. Jesus asks her, “Please give me a drink.” She is surprised because this goes outside the normal social taboo of that time. She asks Jesus why he would ask her, and Jesus answers, “If only you knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.” What a beautiful statement that is! The woman is confused and skeptical, but Jesus tells her that whoever drinks this water in the well will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water He gives them will never be thirsty.

This sentence and the context of the woman at the well communicate a truth which is still relevant to us 2026 years later. Why do we settle for empty when Jesus came to fill us to full? Jesus acknowledged and gave the woman a solution to her emptiness: “Those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life” (4:14). Notice He didn’t just say a spring of water welling up, but welling up and over. Jesus came to fill us up. We are meant to be filled up. But like the Samaritan woman at first, we can hold back from God’s abundance, thinking we only deserve a sip. We convince ourselves that our past mistakes, current circumstances, and the shame we feel are beyond God’s full love and forgiveness.

This mindset is wrong. Our past shame has nothing to do with it.

God wants you to be filled up with His love, His forgiveness, His living water. The woman by the well accepted it. A woman with a life so full of regrets, mistakes, and disappointments she wasn’t able to walk to the well with the other women. She accepted it and her whole life—and her town—changed (4:39-42). The living water is for you, for me. So, if you want to be filled up with God’s love today, ask yourself these questions: where is God offering to fill you with His living water? How might you be refusing it?

So.. will you accept with me? Will you let God fill you up?

Love TransformedInHisImage