John 4:13-14 Jesus answered, (the Samaritan woman) “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León set sail for the New World in an attempt to find the legendary Fountain of Youth, a spring reputed to have the power to make old people young again. Of course, he found no such source. Yet the quest for eternal youth did not die with Ponce de León.. Here in the almost 21st century, not much has changed. People are still looking for the mythical fountain of youth. Today modern science continues to search for ways to prolong youth. People are buying into with thousands of dollars spent on what will never be found.
About fifteen centuries before Ponce de Leon, a woman came to a well. She wasn’t searching for the fountain of youth. She was just looking for enough water to get her through another day. We don’t know how old she was physically, but we know she was very old emotionally and spiritually. People and life had used her up and when she had outlived her usefulness, they had thrown her away. On that day the woman of John 4 came looking for a jar of water Jesus told her that He could give her a fountain springing up with eternal life – eternal youth. Jesus was the only person that she had ever encountered that loved her completely not because of what she could do for Him but because He was love. He was the only one whom she had encountered in a long time – perhaps ever – that offered her something of value without expecting her to do anything in return This was an offer of love that she may have never experienced before, but Jesus was offering a different kind of love.
The love of God will pursue us to the ends of the earth to catch us. This love He has to offer is not a forceful love but one of grace and hope. You can spend all your time and money trying to stay young and making the outside look acceptable to the world, but it is a heart issue.