thirsty?

It's hot out there. And I'm not just talking about the high temperatures and the sweltering humidity. Our sin is what has left us parched and thirsty, wandering in a spiritual wilderness. No mere tap water can quench our thirst for God. We've tried the alternatives. The polluted puddles and cesspools of this world’s religions and spiritualities can’t quench the deep thirst we have for righteousness, for wholeness, for peace. Only God can provide the living water we really need. Only God can open up that stream to us so that we can drink of it and live.

Remember the woman at Jacob's Well? She was thinking of physical thirst, the kind of water that takes work to find, the kind you walk a long way for with a jug on your head. The kind of water you have to work for every day, the kind you work up a thirst just in order to get it.

But Jesus is talking about a different kind of water. A water that flows like a spring, the kind that comes to you, the kind you can drink from and never thirst again, the kind that wells up to eternal life. This is not the water you can draw from Jacob’s well, or from any other well. This is living water that flows from the Creator, Savior, and Sustainer of all things.

This is the water that comes from God, which flowed from the rock in the wilderness.
“They drank from the same spiritual Rock in the wilderness, and that Rock was Christ.”
This is the same water that flowed like a stream from Jesus’ wounded side on the cross.
This is the River of Life, the Spirit who proceeds from the Father and Son, flowing like a river down the center of the heavenly city and watering the Tree of Life in Revelation. This is the water that flows to you in Baptism, a water with the Word that brings forgiveness, life, and salvation.

"The water I give will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

"Let those who are thirsty come; and receive the water of life without cost.”

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