Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. John 4:13-14

Dear brothers and sisters,

Life: in Jesus’ name

This week we come to the end of the first part of our series ‘Life: in Jesus’ name’ in chapters 1-4 of John’s gospel. However, God willing we will return to John in term 1 over the next 3 years and listen to the remaining sections of this extraordinary gospel.

My dream is that over the years Jesus’ words of eternal life in John becomes part of the life blood of our church. Alongside listening to it together on Sundays I pray that it will become a ‘go to’ book for us in lots of other ways: memorising and meditating on for ourselves personally, meeting up with one another to feed on together, sitting down and opening up with unbelievers so they can hear Jesus’ words of eternal life.

To that end a profitable thing you might like to consider doing is to go over these chapters again slowly by yourself or with a friend. The Word 121 that we have been recommending as a resource to use with unbelievers could also be used for this. The website has free PDFs of the booklets. It has been such a blessing personally to study John. One thing that has struck me in particular has been the sheer goodness of the life I have been so graciously given by Jesus. I find that I too easily forget how wonderful it is to be a Christian. J. C. Ryle puts it so well in his reflection on Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman:

Thousands of men have every temporal good thing that heart could wish, and are yet weary and dissatisfied…Riches, and rank, and place, and power, and learning, and amusements, are utterly unable to fill the soul…There is no heart-satisfaction in this world, until we believe on Christ, Jesus alone can fill up the empty places of our inward man. Jesus alone can give solid, lasting, enduring happiness. The peace that he imparts is a fountain, which, once set flowing within the soul, flows on to all eternity. Its waters may have their ebbing seasons; but they are living waters, and they shall never be completely dried.

May we each increasingly grasp the blessing we have received and long to share it with others.

Your brother in Christ,
Micky

P.S. Next week at our Easter services we will be making an Easter appeal for Southern Cross Presbyterian Church in Lismore. This is the church that Jess Egan has joined and has been devastated by the recent floods. Here is a link to the giving page if you would like to contribute ahead of time.