“If Anyone Thirsts”
Hello Saints,
Have you noticed that everyone seems to be carrying a water bottle with them? What an industry this has become! All sizes and colors and logos. They have become as popular as cell phones. How did we ever live without them? I wonder how many get left behind and make their way to the forgotten and unclaimed water bottle graveyard. In an attempt to do away with the plastic bottle, we have created a huge industry of crafting the fanciest, most user-friendly water container. A trip to your local store for a simple bottle of water leaves one standing in front of a myriad of over-priced, international selections of exotic and flavored water choices, to the point where you have to look long and hard just to find the simple bottle of water you came in for. When I worked construction many years ago there was a thing called a thermos, the smaller one for coffee, the one gallon one you filled with ice and tap water. The latter was a big bulky thing that came in minimal colors – but who cared? It was a water jug! I could go on and on about how water has become a multi-billion dollar industry. Like everything else that succumbs to the spirit of mammon, the consumer who is led to believe that simple tap water will kill you, is forced into the personal water bottle industry. Fountains and roadside water filling stations from flowing springs seem to be a thing of the past. All I want is a drink of water to quench my thirst!
The water industry is indicative of how our society has taken the mundane and simple everyday activity and marketed it so that we believe we “need” our own, personal, expensive, product to get through life. Call me old-fashioned, but I used to go on a bike ride with one ugly plastic water bottle attached to my bike with a 99cent holder that screwed into the bike. Now there are multi-bottle belts I see riders wearing, and all kinds of contraptions for drinking on the fly. Everything at our fingertips to meet the so-called needs of our hearts, yet people have never been so thirsty. I meet people who are just worn out, frustrated and discouraged from using their hard-earned money to keep up with the ever-changing fads and trends of our times – young parents working so hard to give their kids the things all the other kids have, whose parents have been taken captive by that same spirit of mammon. I have witnessed how it leaves people tired, frustrated, angry. Discouraged to the point where many are ready to pack it in and end up divorcing, walking away, or worse. So much to satisfy our cravings, yet we remain more in need than ever.
At this point, after a week of indulging in festivities, eating and drinking and celebrating till overly-content, Jesus cries out, “If anyone thirsts…”. How could anyone be thirsty after all that partying and frivolity! That is precisely the point. One can have all the water bottles one could wish for, filled with the finest waters the world has to offer, and yet be dying of thirst: “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive…” (John 7:37-39). Thirsty? Come to Jesus! I have a footnote in my Bible saying the Greek could read, ‘let him keep coming to Me and let him keep drinking’ – the ever-flowing Water of Life offers a continual supply of life-giving water. Oh friend, are you drinking deeply of Jesus? Are we allowing Him to satisfy our deepest longings as the author of Psalm 42 acknowledges: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God.” When we have discovered and surrendered to the reality that only God can satisfy the thirst in our heart, we are able to bring the good news to others, in the power of Holy Spirit, that “there is a river whose streams make glad”. Whoever allows Jesus to be their thirst quencher will in turn be used to bring living water to others. We who have had our thirst quenched, now participate in quenching the thirst of others. The key is to continually allow Jesus to fill you with life-giving water, so that the overflow flows out to others, so they can experience true life. We are conduits, springs, even unique water bottles that carry water to others. Do you see yourself, if you are continually drinking deeply of Christ and being filled with Holy Spirit, as someone who can be a conduit for living water? Do you know people caught in the water bottle rat race who are dying of thirst, and need to encounter the Living Water? One place, one selection, available for “anyone”….and it’s free! Don’t believe me? Read John 4.
"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live." (Isaiah 55:1-3)
Have a fruitful week!
"Advancing the Kingdom of God by releasing Spirit-filled followers to serve Jesus in freedom and joy."
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