Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well in the heat of the day. She is an outcast, worn down by life, coming to get what she thinks she needs, which is water. But Jesus offers her something far greater. He tells her, "If you knew who was asking you for a drink, you’d be asking Me for living water." She came for a temporary fix, but Jesus points to her deeper thirst, one she has been trying to satisfy in all the wrong places.  Read More

Jesus does not just point to the way; He is the way. He is not offering a self-help strategy or a spiritual buffet where you take what you like and leave the rest. He is making an exclusive claim when He says, "No one comes to the Father except through Me." That means all our attempts at being good enough, all our self-made identities, and all the things we chase after to give our lives meaning apart from Him do not work. They are counterfeit gods that promise life but leave us empty.  Read More