Live to Love Scripture Encouragement

John 4:49-50 The royal official said to Him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your son lives.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off. The faith expressed by the official satisfied Jesus that His Father was working, and word of Christ satisfied the official. He needed no proof, in direct contrast to those Jesus rebuked for needing signs to b...

John 4:48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” This is a very interesting reply by Jesus. The “you-people-see” is a third-person singular form, meaning, Jesus isn’t referring to Himself or to the official. He’s referring to someone not in the immediate audience. Then Jesus used the second-person plural when He said, “you will not believe”, r...

John 4:46-47 Therefore He came again to Cana of Galilee, where He had made the water wine. And there was a royal official whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to Him and was imploring Him to come down and heal his son; for he was at the point of death. Let’s begin today with a few facts. The journey to Cana from Sychar was about 40 m...

John 4:45 So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the things that He did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves also went to the feast. In light of yesterday’s contrast between the Samaritan’s receiving Jesus and the Galilean’s prior rejection of Him, we learn from today’s verse that the Galileans received Him. However, let’s notice why. They had attended th...

John 4:43-44 After the two days, He went forth from there into Galilee. For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. These verses are meant to show us the contrast between how Jesus was received in Samaria and how He was received in Galilee. He was received in Sychar, a city of Gentiles, as a prophet. Remember what the woman said after Jesus revealed that He knew she...

John 4:39-42 From that city, many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He told me all the things that I have done.” So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. Many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we belie...

John 4:37-38 For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor. The food the disciples brought was the fruit of someone else’s labor. Jesus pointed out that fact, so He wanted them to notice that they were entering or coming into their labor. The same thing was about...

John 4:35-36 Do you not say, “There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest”? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already, he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. Jesus continued talking about spiritual agriculture. The food He had been ea...

John 4:33-34 So the disciples were saying to one another, "No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. The disciples’ response to Jesus about the food He said He had to eat was so similar to Nicodemus and the woman at the well. They didn’t understand and tried to make sense out of what Jesus said from th...

John 4:30 They went out of the city, and were coming to Him. In John 3:35 we read, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.” In John 3:27, John the Baptist said, “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.” In this verse, we should be encouraged of the Father’s love for His Son. The Father used the woman’s testimony to draw a group of men to Jesus....

John 4:28-29 So the woman left her water pot, and went into the city and said to the men, "Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?" The Samaritan woman came to the well to fill her water pot, but left with her soul filled with living water. Once she had heard that Jesus was the Christ, filling the water pot was irrelevant. She left it. Have we le...

John 4:27 At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, "What do You seek?" or, "Why do You speak with her?" At this point, the Father determined that the woman had enough information upon which to respond. The conversation ended with the arrival of the disciples. And for a reason that we can only attribute to the work of God’s Spir...

John 4:25-26 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” How do you think the woman at the well understood what Jesus said about God? This verse reveals that she didn’t understand it at all. She again changed the subject, but at least hovered around the salvat...

John 4:23-24 But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. Do you think it is encouraging to know who the Father is seeking to be His worshipers? Psalms 53:2 puts this in God’s perspective. “God has looked down...

John 4:23 But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. Jesus told her that the time had come for true worshipers to worship the Father in spirit and truth. The term true worshipers created a contrast between true and false worshipers. False worshipers focus on the physical realm, trad...

John 4:22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. The issue with everyone we meet is salvation, not what denomination they belong to or what eschatology they espouse or their ethnicity. Jesus’ reference to salvation being from the Jews is the same as saying that the Messiah or Savior is from the Jews. Simeon in Luke 2:29-30, John the Baptist in Lu...

John 4:21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” After Jesus had revealed that He knew she had been married five times and was living with another man, the woman surmised that Jesus was a prophet and posed the debate between the Samaritans and the Jews as to where God was to be worshiped. It’s interestin...

John 4:19-20 The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." Jesus had just said to her, "Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have correctly said, 'I have no husband’; for you have had five...

John 4:16-18 He said to her, "Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have correctly said, 'I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly." At first glance, it appears that Jesus was shaming the woman. If He knew she had five husbands before tell...

John 4:15 The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw." The idea of never thirsting and not having to make the long walk to the well or carry the heavy load of water each day must have been extremely appealing. But Jesus wasn’t offering the woman an easier, more convenient life. That’s not what He meant by the offer of living water, b...

John 4:13-14 Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." Everything in the natural physical world has limitations. Let’s think about what Jesus said. The one who drinks of the water fr...

John 4:11-12 She said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?" Is it possible to get the supernatural from the natural? Jesus spoke of the supernatural, living water that would satisfy this woman’s thirst...

John 4:9 Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Obviously Jesus surprised her by His asking her for a drink. It wasn’t normal for a Jew to cross the social and religious divide between Jews and Samaritans. It shouldn’t surprise us, however, because we know that’s wha...

John 4:10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” We see Jesus’ reason for demanding a drink from the Samaritan woman. His command to give Him a drink revealed the intensity of His need. I don’t want us to miss what I think is an important insight. This is th...

John 4:7-8 There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Yesterday we were encouraged that God has divine appointments for us. The woman from Samaria had no idea at the first that she was having an encounter with God, but of course, Jesus did. Being weary and thirsty, it’s easy to imagine what was going...