Bread and Water Pt. III

He said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”. “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”
Jn. 4:32-34

Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.”“I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.
Jn. 5:17, 19-20

In this discussion on Jesus being the bread of life and the living water, my attention has been drawn to Jesus’ statements about the satisfaction and sustenance he gained from doing what his Father told him to do. I’ve found myself beginning to pray and asking God to show me what he is doing. Jesus’ statement, ‘...the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does’, is massive to me right now.

I know that the Father loves me with the same quality of depth of love that he loves Jesus (Jn. 17:23), so I have not only the right, but the invitation to come to my Heavenly Father and ask him to show me all that He is doing.

Bread and Water Pt. II

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

Jesus makes this statement and in the next verse, the Samaritan woman immediately interprets it completely literally and assumes that one drink will suffice for the rest of her life:

The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water".

On the surface of it, this assumption makes sense. Only a couple of chapters later we read this:

The Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty".
Jn. 6:35

The problem is when I assume that a single 'drink' will satisfy me forever. It's not a 'once filled, always filled' type of thing.
Jesus taught us to pray, "Give us today our daily bread". When I connect that prayer to Jesus saying "I am the bread of life" (Jn. 6:48), I recognize that Jesus is calling me to daily 'eat and drink' of His Presence.

"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.
Jn. 7:38-39

I've known for many years that being filled with the Spirit is not a single event, but an ongoing lifestyle of being continually filled with the Spirit. The problem is that like the Samaritan woman, I often want to 'eat or drink' of Jesus in a way that 'I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water'. The Samaritan woman was thinking in terms of frequency, while Jesus was thinking in terms of level of satisfaction
Perhaps most importantly for me, as I realize that Jesus wants me to daily come to Him to eat and drink and be satisfied, I understand the presence of spiritual hunger and thirst in my life. It's not that I've somehow failed to properly drink of the spring of living water or eat of the bread of life; rather it is His gift to me that keeps me coming back over and over again, because He enjoys my presence even more than I enjoy His.

Bread and Water

Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
John 4:14

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.
John 7:38

I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never by thirsty.
John 6:35

I've been staring at these verses and praying them for some weeks now.

Many thoughts... many thoughts...