The Hungry Inherit : Winning the Wealth of the World to Come - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Zane Hodges has sought to live a life consistent with the marvelous and undeserved grace that his loving heavenly Father showed Zane, when He gave Zane the absolutely free gift of eternal life through faith alone in Jesus Christ. Currently, Zane is engaged in pastoral ministry at Victor Street Bible Chapel in Dallas, where he has ministered for over 40 years. Zane received his BA degree from Wheaton College and his ThM degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. He taught New Testament Greek and exegesis at Dallas Theological Seminary for 27 years until 1987. Zane also served as the Chairman of the New Testament Department.

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From Chapter 1: "Sir," she responded quizzically, "You don't have a bucket and the well is deep. Where then do You get this flowing water? Surely You aren't greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well and drank of it himself with his family and cattle, are You?"

There was a note of sarcasm in her voice now. To dig a well to which supplies of water would be both copious and long-lasting in the arid East was no small accomplishment indeed. Jacob's well met both these conditions, for its resources had been adequate not only for his sizable household and for his numerous flocks and herds, but more than this, its waters had continued to flow through the centuries right down to this very day. And that was why the woman was here. "He gave us this well," she said. "Are You great enough to do better?"

He was great enough. But this was not the moment to tell her so. True, a basic datum which He must shortly impart to her involved His divine identity, and the revelation of that identity would make it as pointless to compare Jacob with Him as it is pointless to compare a candle with the sun. But first, she must know the gift of God. This well was Jacob's gift. The gift of God, however, was of an entirely different order; and this fact must be stated at once.

Anyone who drinks of this water will get thirsty again," replied the Saviour, ignoring Jacob entirely. "But whoever takes a drink of the water that I will give him, will never thirst! In fact, the water that I will give him will become inside of him a spring of water gushing up into eternal life!"

The offer was staggering! No water from this, or any other earthly well, could produce such a result. In fact, every drink--of whatever kind--that the world offered to thirsty man could have only the most fleeting and transient effect. And if that was true of all the literal waters used to temporarily quench man's physical thirst, it was much more poignantly true of the worldly fountains at which they sought to quench their thirst of heart.

Love, success, wealth, fame--these were but a few of the countless springs at which men had stooped to drink, only to rise from them to find that they offered no lasting inward satisfaction, no enduring personal fulfillment. "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again," was a statement as broad as the innumerable means by which men had sought their ultimate contentment.

But His water was different! It could accomplish a miracle! The one who drank it was secure from thirst, not merely for time but for eternity as well. "Whoever drinks of this water will never thirst!" The need that His water was designed to meet and for which men were to appropriate it, was a need that could never reoccur. Thus, in its infinitely satisfying qualities, it exceeded the value of any earthly drink as much as the value of an ingot of pure gold exceeds the value of a speck of sand.