Dear PBC Family,
If you had your choice, would you prefer to drink fresh cold spring water or lukewarm water that has been sitting in a cistern for a while? Easy question, right?
When he was taking a break from a hot and dusty trip, Jesus told the woman-at-the-well, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again” (John 4:14). In the next verse he told her, “The water that I will give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Every human is created with a spiritual thirst. The thirst is not condemned by the Lord, but people’s methods for satiating this thirst are often found to be wanting. Thus, Jeremiah speaks of Israel’s rejecting the best water available, a fresh water spring (the Lord), in favor of the low-quality water of a broken cistern (idols): “for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)
Not only do people go after things that are less satisfying (money, career, fame, prestige), but when they are accumulated, they run out. That is because cisterns always run out, but a spring never runs out of water. So anything that we pursue to quench our soul-thirst, other than the Lord, quickly becomes stagnant.
The only pursuit that truly satisfies is Jesus Christ, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money… Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price… Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isaiah 55:1–3)
Blessings,
Jarred