Students of Faith
the verse behind the song

Living Water

CAIN

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John 4:7-14 · the full passage

7A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. 9The Samaritan woman therefore said to him, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered 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.” 11The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. So where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, as did his children, and his livestock?” 13Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, 14but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
John 4:7-14 · WEB · Public domain.
more about this song

CAIN says Living Water came from Jesus' words in John 4, where he tells a Samaritan woman at a well that anyone who drinks the water he gives will never be thirsty again.

Slow down

it's sunday, a good day to slow down. find a quiet spot, put your headphones in and listen to the song once as worship.

The line

“I need the living water”

from Living Water, CAIN

What it's about

John 4:6 says Jesus sat down at Jacob's well about the sixth hour, around noon, the hottest part of the day. women usually drew water in the cooler morning or evening, so many readers think this woman was avoiding people, though John doesn't say why. she was also a Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans had argued for centuries over where God should be worshiped (verse 20), and over a hundred years earlier a Jewish ruler had destroyed the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim. that's why she's shocked that Jesus asks her for a drink.

living water was also an everyday phrase for fresh water from a flowing spring, so at first she takes it literally, and Jesus means something deeper in verses 13 and 14. CAIN told Life 90.5 that they wrote the song in a season when their prayers were getting answered and it still didn't feel like enough, and that Jesus' words in John 4 are when it hit them that they were thirsty. Jesus makes the same offer in John 7:37-38, and the song's longing sounds a lot like Psalm 42:1-2.

Sit with it

she came at the hottest part of the day, and Jesus was already there. what do you keep going back to that leaves you thirsty again?

Pray

Jesus, I keep going back to things that leave me thirsty. you're what I need. fill me up today. amen.

Listen again

play the song once more and listen for the chorus, now that you've read John 4:14.

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