The Fountain of Living Water

Pause:

Before you start reading this devotional, take a moment to stop what you’re doing, slow down and focus on Jesus.Pray and ask him to open your eyes to see as you read the scriptures, and to open your ears to hear as you wait on the leading of the Spirit.

Read:

Jeremiah 2 v 13: “For my people have committed a double evil: They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns themselves—cracked cisterns that cannot hold water”

Isaiah 55 v 1-3: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live.”

Going Deeper:

All throughout the new testament we read stories about people seeking out Jesus. Men and women, young and old, outcasts, the poor and the rich, tax collectors, sinners and the religious all coming to Jesus, all looking for something. All dissatisfied, tired and weary from what life has offered them up to this point. All seeking something more, something that will fill the void in their lives.

All tired of trying to quench their thirst by obtaining fame or popularity, success, recognition, power or through the many delights and comforts this world has to offer . Many at the point of realising that their joy is not made complete in any of these things. Some of them about to discover for the first time that their thirst for more can only be quenched in Jesus.

For many of us our relationship with Jesus followed a similar path. Perhaps we too found ourselves at the end ourselves tired with the status quo and promises of satisfaction through fruitless joys. Desperate and thirsty for more, leading us to find that more in Jesus himself. Realising that he alone satisfies, that he is the fountain of living water.

And yet throughout the scriptures, and certainly amongst followers of Jesus today, there seems to be an undeniable pull to seek once more for joy in places that it cannot truly be found. Abandoning God in an attempt to find satisfaction elsewhere. Forgetting that the many wells dug out before never lived up to the hype that they promised. They always ended up being cracked and broken. They always ended up leaking, leaving the diggers with an “ever-increasing craving for an ever-diminishing pleasure” (CS Lewis).

Perhaps this is the place we find ourselves in now. Slowly over time, or during the course of this year, we have become less dependent on Jesus for our joy and satisfaction and have chosen instead to dig our own wells in the search for these things. Forgetting the one who calls us to himself and to the feast that he prepares for us. Perhaps we are feeling thirsty, dissatisfied and in need.

Today Jesus calls us back to himself, the true fountain of living water. He calls us to drop our shovels and to come just as we are. He reminds us that we don’t have to perform or to earn his embrace but that it costs us nothing to find lasting satisfaction in him because he paid the price in full on the cross so that our joy could be complete in him. He calls us to return to him, to delight in him, to feast and be truly satisfied in him.

Pray:

Respond to God in prayer by speaking to Him about what stood out to you from this passage this morning.

Listen:What is the Holy Spirit saying to you right now?

Apply:What are you going to do in response to what God is saying to you from the text and by the Spirit?