A weary One sat at Jacob’s well: it was Jesus. He had come in love to His own to save them from their sins, but they received Him not. Weary and grieved was His tender heart as He sat at Jacob’s well.
There is a woman coming with her water pot to the well. She is one to whom the proud Pharisee would scorn to speak. She is a despised Samaritan, and that is not all: she is a poor, wretched being who is living in open sin. She little knows that she is about to meet the eye of Him who knows all that ever she did.
She arrives at the well, and is astonished that Jesus, being a Jew, should ask her to give Him a drink. “Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.”
He did not say, “If thou were not so great a sinner.” He did not say, “If thou wilt reform and become a holy woman, then I will give thee living water.” No! No! No! He let her know that He knew all that ever she had done. But there was such a depth of pity, grace, and compassion in His wonderful countenance, such tender love to the sinner in those words, that it won her heart it converted her soul. Christ was revealed to her; and, leaving her water pot, she went to the city with her heart so full of Christ that, forgetting her own shame, she said, “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?”
My reader, can you meet the eye of Him who knows every thought of your heart from childhood? And can you say that you are not a sinner? How was it, think you, that Jesus was so attractive to this poor woman? And what can those words mean—“If thou knewest the gift of God...”? Can it be that this is the one great thing needed by a poor wretched sinner? It is; there can be no mistake about it, for Jesus says it.
The thing you need is to know the gift of God.
Do you ask who or what is the gift of God? The same that met that poor Samaritan—Jesus, the Son of God; as also it is written, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His) only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “The gift of God is eternal life.” “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”
My reader, it is a gift, a gift, A GIFT! Oh, if you knew this! You cannot buy it; you cannot merit it. He that knows all that ever you did—all that you are—sets before you Jesus, His Son. Do you know Him, the gift of all gifts?
Do you say, “But my sins are heavy; they press me down. What must I do?” If you knew the gift of God! Yes, though you had committed every sin that has been done in this dark world, yet God’s gift, “redemption through His blood,” abounds above it all.
“The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” His very business was saving just such burdened, weary, heavy-hearted sinners as you are. Blessed be His Holy name, the work is finished.
May God reveal to your soul, my reader, Christ Jesus. Change of life and holiness of life will follow, but the first thing is to know the gift of God.