John 3: We Simply Need to Ask, and He'll give us eternal life

John 3:10: 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.'

This verse has several parts. Most people focus on the end part - on the living water. And that's important, but since I've read this several times, that's not the part that stood out to me today.

The part that stood out is: "You would have asked Him, and He would have given". In other words, sometimes he doesn't simply give, and he also doesn't withhold, but he wants us to ask. Even though the lady was not a Jew (and in fact, Samaritans were looked down by Jews - so she would have been looked down because of her culture and because she was a woman), and Jesus knew that, and yet in spite of that, all she had to do was ask (in fact, he wanted her to), and He would have given her the greatest gift of all: living water (His presence, which leads to eternal life).

How often do we ask for Him?

There are two preconditions to this:

1. We have to know the gift of God. I'm assuming in this case, it means the Law.
2. We have to know Jesus's role. We have to know about the Messiah, and the expectations of what the Messiah would be. We also have to know that Jesus is Him.

The woman reveals later that she does indeed know about the Messiah and is waiting, like the Jews, for Him.

Later in v. 14 (quick aside: I love how Jesus responds with a deflecting, inoffensive yet accurate answer when people ask Him hard questions! He never answers with just a Yes or No, which I get trapped into), he points out that people will never thirst again but will also gain eternal life.

As Christians, do we thirst again? I know I certainly seem to. Does this mean I've done something wrong? have I not asked Him fully? Or do I just need my wellspring to replenish?

The woman is understandably confused, and eventually realizes when He tells her things that only she should know, that He must come from God and is therefore a prophet. I won't dwell here because a lot of studies already focus on the woman.

Instead, v. 23 and 24, Jesus says those who truly worship God will worship in spirit and truth. Since he's drawing a contrast between the Jews (who have the right background and truths) and the Samaritans (who I'm sure are worshiping faithfully, but have some of their canon wrong), I'm assuming Jesus is saying we need to worship in spirit (with fervor) and have the right set of canon/truths, and these are the two components to worshiping God.

In other words, fervor is not enough. Lots of people worship a god today, but the canons of the different world religions are different. Jesus says yes you need to be a faithful, devoted follower of God - but you also need to know and believe the set of canons that are the truth. This is not a popular message today - a lot of people seem to hold the belief that it's okay to be faithful, but all religions are equal and it's bad to say yours has the truth and others don't hold the whole truth (even if it's true!). I agree that it's bad to use any form of violence against those who don't agree with you, and indeed you don't even need to pick fights with people you know don't agree, but it shouldn't be a crime to think your religion is true and the others, even if they hold grains of truth, don't have it 100% right. (otherwise why would you worship your brand of religion if all were 100% true?) Obviously, some are more true than others.

So the lesson from today is:

1. we need to ask, even if we're not of the right ilk or think we don't deserve it, and Jesus will give us the greatest gift of all
2. true worshipers of God need to both believe fervently/devoutly and know the truth.

Even if you know the truth, how devout do you consider yourself? I'm still working on cultivating devoutness.

Goals:
-grow in my devoutness. Through what? Meditation? Focusing more on Christ during my day? Spouting more Christianisms and forcing myself to really believe them?
-find this living water. How do I not run dry? pray more during hard times? cultivate optimism in Christ/God that He will come through?