Living Water
By Stefan Johnsson
John 4:10-14 (NIV)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?
12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
14 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.”
Jeremiah 2:13 (NIV)
13 “My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Nothing in this life will ever satisfy you except Jesus. This is the living water, the sustenance that will never fade, never dry out, and never leave you feeling empty. All else will.
Oh, how we have all gone astray, each to our own way and to our own lusts and desires. It started in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, and we are no different. Each of us has chosen to follow the same path of Adam and Eve and would’ve kept walking in this way before Jesus changed our lives. We seek to be the god of our own life and fill the god size hole in our heart with passions, desires, and material possessions. In the end, where does that lead us? Where does that take us but on a pathway to death?
The prophet Jeremiah spoke on this. It was one of the first things this young man did, it was to tell the Israelites that they have forsaken God, the living water, and gone off to fill it by worshipping false gods and other idols. These idols could not hold the water, they were broken vessels. If only they had kept to the words of God, they would have had the spring of living water that would feed and fill their lives.
We are no different than the Israelites. When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, he brought this exact point up. If only you would drink from the well of living water, you would have no need for anything else. You would be fully and wholly satisfied. Don’t keep drawing the water from the broken cisterns as you will always have to go back and get more to fill yourself, and the broken vessels never lasts and never fully satisfies.
Jesus is the only source of lasting water. The true living water, one from a cistern that men and women did not dig, but one that God dug for us. So, let us rely on Jesus for our fullness. Drink from the living water and never feel thirsty again.
Prayer:
Jesus, I am sorry for putting another idol before you in my life. Let me forsake this and dedicate my life back to you. You are the only source of living water and only you can fill me completely so I will never thirst again. Help me to follow you more today than the day before and to let go of anything and everything that entangles me.