Morning By Morning #280

Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.

John 4:14

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

A believer in Jesus finds enough in his Lord to satisfy him now and forevermore. A true believer is not someone whose days are tiresome for lack of comfort and whose nights seem extremely long due to the absence of heart-cheering thoughts, for in his faith he finds such a spring of joy and such a fountain of comfort that he is content and happy. Place him in a dungeon and he will find fellowship; place him in a barren wilderness and he will eat “the bread of heaven” (Ps. 105:40); or drive him away from every earthly friendship and he will meet the “friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24). Wither all his vines (see Jonah 4:7) and he will find shade beneath the Rock of Ages, or sap the source of his earthly hopes and his heart will remain fixed, trusting in his Lord.

The human heart is as insatiable as the grave until Jesus enters it, but then it becomes a cup full to overflowing. There is such fullness in Christ that He alone is the believer’s “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). A true saint is so completely satisfied with the all-sufficiency of Jesus that he thirsts no more, except for a deeper drink from the living fountain. In that same sweet way, dear believer, you will thirst. Yet it will not be a painful thirst but one of loving desire, and you will find it to be a glorious thing to be panting after a fuller enjoyment of Jesus’ love. Someone long ago said, “I have been sinking my bucket into the well quite often, but now my thirst for Jesus has become so insatiable that I long to put the well itself to my lips and continually drink.”

Believer, does this describe the longing of your heart today? Do you feel that all your desires are satisfied in Jesus, and that you have no more needs except your longing to know more of Him and to have closer fellowship with Him? If so, then continually come and “drink without cost from the spring of the water of life” (Rev. 21:6). Jesus will never accuse you of taking too much but will always welcome you, saying, “Drink your fill, O lovers” (Song 5:1).

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

To this day, as in biblical times, water is more important to Israel than oil. Perhaps this is why the Old and the New Testaments are replete with passages using water as the symbol for spiritual life and salvation. Jesus told the woman at the well,

If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water…Everyone who drinks this water [from this well] will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

John 4:10, 13–14

A thousand years earlier, foreshadowing the coming Christ, David wrote: “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul” (Ps. 23:1 – 3). And seven hundred years before Jesus, Isaiah prophesized, “‘God will come…to save you.’…Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs” (Isa. 35:4, 6 – 7).

Father, thank You for Your living water that has given me eternal life!