Thirsty anyone?

This week I have been in Jeremiah chapter 18 and 19  Both chapters are visible signs to the prophet Jeremiah about God’s willingness and ability to reshape the nation of Israel.  First, Jeremiah is sent to the potters house to observe the potter at work, and while there witnesses a lump of clay not turning out according to plan, but being reshaped into another vessel.  Secondly, Jeremiah is instructed to buy a clay vessel (I wander if it was the reshaped one from Chapter 18?) and to smash it as a warning of what Israel was in for.  The whole point was that Israel needed to be in God’s hands to be shaped and formed, something they very clearly were not.  Israel was into some very wicked practices, all of which demonstrated to God that, quite simply, He was not good enough.  As the degeneration of Israel continued, and their practices got worse, they served idols and sacrificed their children to the god molech.   This was quite possibly an all-time low Israel had sunk, and they were in huge danger of being smashed like the clay pot and having their enemies destroy them.  If you read Jeremiah 19, you will see the horrid things Israel were about to encounter due to their own refusal to listen to God.

In Jeremiah chapter 2, Gods main lament about Israel is seen in verse 13 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.

This may all seem completely remote to us in the 21^st Century, but is it?  The church today is FULL of believers who dig their own wells.  How do I dig my own well?  Or rather, do I forsake the fountain of living waters?  Today we have self-dug cisterns a plenty ( in the church), endless television watching, over eating,  secret sins such a pornography viewing, homosexuality, fornication drug taking, alcoholism and the list goes on.  Sadly, many of these are addictions.  Israel seemed to be addicted to foreign gods.  All of this is digging a well, a cistern that can hold no water.  All of this is forsaking God, the fountain of living water. A lot of Christians try to quench their thirst with sea water, it may quench for a small while, but causes damage and makes the thirst worse.  Max Lucado, in his book Come Thirsty writes “Not everything you put to your lips will help your thirst” – and that’s the truth we see in Jeremiah chapter 2.  It is time to drink long draughts of the fountain of living waters.  Jesus said in John 4:14 ..but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Our default to soul thirst quenching must only be found in the presence of God, and this is where I believe Christians are missing out.  Entering the presence of God and revelling in it, spending time with God in prayer in the word, hearing from Him anywhere, anytime should be our habit.  We need to come to Jesus more than we do, we need to drink long draughts of His presence and know that He is the only one who can satisfy the thirst of our soul.  The minute we reach out to anything other than Jesus to quench our thirst is declaring that God is not good enough.  It is doing what sin desires and that is to rule God right out of the equation.  Let us not follow Israel’s example and reach out to lifeless gods and get into a complete mess.  Let us come to Jesus and drink of the water He gives and experience genuine soul satisfaction.

Revelation 21:6 And he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.