Living Water / Dead Water

Jeremiah 2:12-13 Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror," declares the LORD. "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.

Years ago, a great Christian couple from the church that my wife was secretary until her job-ending illness, and who are still dear faithful brother& sister in Christ today, loaned me a video series by Focus on the Family Films, titled “That the World May Know” for my Bible Study group. Host Ray Vander Laan each session would take his Christian tour group and us to a specific location in Israel or Turkey (places in the Bible), then present a Faith Lesson that connected that Biblical location or feature and the Scriptures into context with the Lord’s message for understand - then and today. All so that we may grow, mature and witness as Children of God in this lost & dying world without Christ. “The ancient land of Israel is a testimony; an evidence of the greatness of what God did in that country; a testimony of the words that we find in the pages of the Bible”. An outstanding video series that I hope that each and everyone could have a chance to watch and be blessed too.

Psalm 63:1 “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Psalm 42:1-2 “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”

One particulate session in Volume 3 titled “En Gedi – Living Water”, beside a small spring-fed waterfall & oasis that David (hiding from King Saul) drank from in the wilderness of the Judean desert, Vander Laan defines and explains the difference between God created “living water” that flows and satisfies, is new, cool & fresh, clear, pure & alive and “cistern water’” from a man-made holding tank that stagnates at room temperature, leaking, impure and dead. Living water symbolizes a heart for the Lord and a life led by & lived for God, while Cistern water symbolizes life that has turned from God towards idols and put its trust in their own strength, abilities and desires. What makes a desert is the lack of water. Sometimes, this culture can be so attractive with all its distractions, so pleasurable and so pleasant, that we fail to realize that even things that are comfortable and enjoyable can be like a desert, if we leave God, the source of life, out. I wonder if we really realize how dry and barren our culture truly is? Out in the secular world, there are people dying of thirst because God is not a part of their life, is not a part of their existence, not a part of their experience and not a part of their everyday experience.

John 4:10-14 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

God is the one who brings water. Life is possible because of water and water is life. Idols and cisterns fail always, but God never fails. Life for the child of God can sometimes be like a dry and tiresome wilderness, as we serve the Lord, give to others in need and impact our culture for Christ. We need to take time to go and refresh our soul, rest and get strength in living water, and taste God, source of life. Drink up & praise the Lord!

1Kings 8:57-61 May the LORD our God be with us as he was with our fathers; may he never leave us nor forsake us. May he turn our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep the commands, decrees and regulations he gave our fathers. And may these words of mine, which I have prayed before the LORD, be near to the LORD our God day and night, that he may uphold the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel according to each day's need, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other. But your hearts must be fully committed to the LORD our God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands, as at this time."

In Christ, Brian