Water, water, every where …… Day 7

Please read John 4:7-14 (for the whole story read John 4:1-45)

In the Bible, from Genesis 1:2 where we read that “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters”, to Jesus teaching us in John 3:5 “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” and finally to the River of Life in Revelation 22, we encounter water or waters in various forms.

In Psalm 124:1-5 the words floods, torrents and raging waters symbolize enemies’ actions against God’s people. The Assyrian invaders are described as waters in Isaiah 8:7. In Isaiah 59:19 the rushing stream is God’s judgment on evildoers and oppressors.   On one hand the above symbols and words might trouble us, but on the other hand we are comforted by the love and actions of a loving God in the Bible’s water imagery. In Psalm 1:3 the blessed man “is like a tree planted by streams of water”. God extends his peace like a river in Isaiah 66:12. 

Coming John 4, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that He is the giver of living water(v.10). During Jesus’ time any hearer of the phrase giver of living water would be reminded of “…Lord, the fountain of living water.” Jeremiah 17:13. So Jesus is teaching the Samaritan woman, and us, that He Is God. Later Jesus promises “The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”(v. 14).  That is good news –eternal life comes only from Jesus. So let us rejoice in the Gospel (good news) that God reconciles us to Himself through Jesus’ perfect life, suffering, death and resurrection.  

And there is more. In John 7:38-39 Jesus makes another promise, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ³⁹ Now this he said about the Spirit..”

So I ask you dear brother and sister in Christ, you who are saved from God’s judgment of rushing waters, and you are given the water-spring welling up to eternal life, do the rivers of living water flow out of your heart? In the Rime of the Ancient Mariner the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge writes “Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.” In the same way, there are many non-believers, who are dying of thirst because the rivers of living water do not flow from my heart and your heart.   

So let us (you and I) ponder these questions – (1) Does living water flow from my heart all the time? (2) Do love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness, self-control flow from my heart towards all of God’s creation? (3) Am I faithful like the Samaritan woman who left her water jar and went told her town people ‘Come and see Jesus’?, and lastly (4) With my words and deeds do I quench(satisfy) other peoples’ thirst or do I quench God the Holy Spirit?

Dear Jesus; thank you for giving me Your Spirit. Help me that from my heart the rivers of living water flow out into the world. Amen!