Most Americans don’t know where to find living water. They think it may be in the supermarket on a never-explored bottom shelf. They are purpose-challenged and don’t realize that living water is the key to discovering it.
Pew Research Center asked, “Where do Americans find meaning in life?” They found that 69 percent named family, 34 percent career, 23 percent money, 20 percent spirituality and faith, 19 percent friends, and 19 percent activities and hobbies.1
Most professing Christians prioritize relationships with their families over a relationship with God because He is not a significant source of satisfaction for them. That is strange because God is the sole fountain of living water, whereas these inadequate substitutes for Him are cracked cisterns that can’t hold water (Jeremiah 2:13).
Jesus refers to living water in His conversation with a Samaritan woman. “Jesus replied, ‘If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water’” (John 4:10 NLT).
The woman thought Jesus meant the liquid that freezes at 32 degrees F. She wondered how He could retrieve water from a deep well without a rope or bucket (v. 11).
“Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life’” (John 4:13–14 NLT). Living water symbolizes God’s gift of the Holy Spirit providing an unending, fully satisfying, purposeful, and meaningful life.
John 7 also helps us understand living water. Jesus is in Jerusalem during the Feast of Tabernacles. For seven days, water was poured at the altar base. On the eighth and last day, it wasn’t.
“On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” (When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory)” (John 7:37–39 NLT).
Notice the scope of the invitation. Anyone who is spiritually thirsty and unfulfilled and who believes and trusts in Jesus may come to Him and receive the Holy Spirit who is that living water. Living water in the Bible is a dynamic, crystal-clear flowing river, not a stagnant scum-covered pond.
Further, those who come to Jesus will be conduits of that living water to others. It would be in them, welling up, and overflowing.
Like Jesus, they will be full of grace, truth, and the life and fruit of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit bestows grace gifts so we can comfort and refresh others.
“The Spirit alone gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63 NLT). The Spirit is actively at work in believers.
When the Holy Spirit fills us, He uses living water within us to irrigate the arid land of unbelief around us to produce new spiritual flowers in the desert for Him. See additional free spiritual growth resources for Christians. #discipleshipresources #evangelismresources #christianleadershipresources
See free spiritual growth resources for Christians at https://www.christiangrowthresources.com
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