# 67 Ditch the Bucket and the Rope

Joh 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." 11 The woman said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12 "Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?" 13 Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 "but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life

Jesus makes the offer of living water to the woman, but for the moment she is thinking in physical terms, and asks a very realistic question. Jesus has no bucket. He has no rope! This is a deep well, you can’t just lean down and scoop out water! “Where then do you get that living water?”

What an excellent illustration of grace! Living water available with no physical means of our own to obtain it That’s grace! Salvation with no physical means of obtaining it! All we can do is look to the Giver of the Living Water and receive it! This bucket of grace goes deep down into the well of your heart! It must, because that’s where grace must reach to turn on the valve so the living water can spring up into everlasting life!

Then the woman continues: “Are You greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well, and drank from it himself?”

Jacob represents the Law, his well was dug with hands, his source of water required human effort, but the water of grace, which Jesus brings is placed in the heart without human effort.

Jesus replies by asserting that His water of grace is indeed greater than Jacob’s water of works. Jacob’s water will never fully satisfy your thirst, you will always have to come back for more, but the living water of Jesus forever satisfies!

The problem with the Law, (Jacob’s water) is you never know when you have done enough for your salvation, so you forever thirst after good deeds and your heart is never at peace, never satisfied. The lives of those who seek to live under the Law are marked by a lack of joy and a frantic desperation. . In fact, many just give up and say, “Oh what’s the use,” and they live as if there were no God, because He seems so cruel and demanding to them.

But the water that Jesus offers is different! There is no more frustration about being “good enough” to get to heaven.  One who drinks of the living water of Jesus  already knows he can’t be good enough, and simply accepts the offer of forgiveness and righteousness in the finished work of Jesus. He becomes our righteousness instead of the Law, and the water that He gives becomes a fountain of water flowing from the deepest part of the heart and springing up into everlasting life. He will produce that which leads to eternal life, rather than us.

That my friend is pure grace, and it will give you the peace that passes all understanding. Let go of your bucket and your rope and let Jesus bring the living water to you!