What Can Be Better Than a Cold Glass of Water?
Not too long ago, having a glass of water was a simple choice. It was simple, you filled your glass with ice and then you either got the water from the kitchen faucet or you poured the water into your glass from a pitcher taken out of the refrigerator. Now fast forward to today. The available choices of water are almost endless. We can still drink tap water, but we also have bottled water. And not just bottled water, but how about artesian, distilled, mineral, purified, sparkling, filtered, spring, or flavored. Even some restaurants now ask what “type” of water you would like to drink.
The discussion of which type of water is best for our health is not a new debate. The Bible talks about receiving nourishment for our body and souls by drinking water. Not just any water, but water that Scripture calls “living water.” The Bible calls God the fountain of life (Psalm 36:8-9), the source of life. And Jesus tells us that He is our spring of water, the sustainer of life. (John 4:10-14; 7:37-39). The apostle Paul tells us that among other things, Jesus is the glue that holds all things together (Colossians 1:15-19).
Let’s turn to a verse of scripture from Jeremiah 2:13, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”
Water was a rare luxury in ancient days, and water from an underground spring, a never-ending source, was to be cherished. On the other hand, cisterns only hold rain water. At best, they store stagnant water; and at worst, they are cracked and the water seeps back into the ground. So the verse we just looked at tells us that the nation of Judah rejected God, they looked away from the “spring of living water” and by doing so they looked elsewhere for water (life), as this verse says, “they dug their own cisterns.”
Isn’t that also true of us? We often look to a broken and leaky cistern to meet our daily needs, or in other words, to find sustenance, to find life. And if that one doesn’t work, we look for another broken and leaky cistern. And when that cistern runs dry, we move to the next one, on and on.
In John 7:37, Jesus invites “anyone who is thirsty to come to Me and drink.” And near the end of the Bible, in Revelation 22:17, we are invited to “drink freely from the water of life.”
Today, when you are physically thirsty, get yourself a glass of cold water and drink from it. And when your soul is thirsty, I want to encourage you to draw from Jesus, your source of living water, and drink and drink and drink from His endless cool and refreshing spring. It is there that you will find lasting and fulfilling nourishment. Ask God to show you where you are searching for nourishment apart from Him.