Are You Thirsty?

Are you thirsty? I think that this world makes us thirsty for good news. Although it seems that the world increasingly plays into our more prurient and fleshly desires. What are those you might say? Lusts of the eyes and flesh are materialism and greed along with addictions of other kinds like alcohol, drugs and sex. We all have needs that only the Savior, Jesus Christ can meet.

Jesus said, “I was thirsty and you gave me drink” (Matthew 25:35). Jesus is talking of caring for the stranger and the needy. He says to give food and drink to the least of these. Yes, these basics can save a life for now. But there is something or someone who can save a life forever into eternity.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6).  This was at the beginning of His ministry on earth. At the end of His ministry, on the cross, He said, “I thirst” (John 19:28). This utterance, in anguish, was a fulfillment of a prophesy of Psalm 22:15, “My strength is dried up like a potshard, and My tongue clings to my jaws; you have brought Me to the dust of death” (Psalm 22:15). He was totally depleted. He had given His all for mankind. They did not understand their need then, as we do not understand today. Christ had to die, He had to give His all that we who trust in Him might live.

Jesus on the last day, the great day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Booths, Ingathering) said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, Scripture has said, ‘out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38).  But Paul in Romans 3:11 says, “There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.”  Yet the Psalmist declares, “As a deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My Soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1-2). This is a powerful description of a deep desire for God’s presence. Do you thirst for a living God in a dry land?  I certainly do. I find life increasingly more dry and difficult without the presence of God.

Seven hundred (700) years before Christ, the Prophet Isaiah told of His coming, “For the water shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. The parched land shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water” Isaiah 35:6-7). He is describing the coming and the way of the Lord for the redeemed. God’s blessings continue, “I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit on your descendants and my blessing on your offspring” (Isaiah 44:3).  This prophesy is fulfilled in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and made complete in His return to reign. Then in Revelation (revealing) we read, “They will hunger and thirst no more…I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts.”  (Revelation 7:16; 21:6).

Now finally Jesus says, “And the Spirit and the bride (church) say, ‘Come! And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.”  (Revelation 22:17).

I have hungered and thirsted for flowing waters. Christ has filled me to overflowing. As I knelt in the new fallen snow along the shores of Lake Superior in a January blizzard, He changed me from crimson to pure white. His power was made perfect in my weakness. What I could not do for myself, He did for me through His Holy Spirit for me. Now as I sit by the waterfalls or lakes I see and re-experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit in me. May you be thirsty and seek and find the source of pure and life-changing water too.