Biblical Perspectives Magazine, Volume 25, Number 16 April 2 to April 22, 2023 |
Water is the most essential and fundamental element known for allowing life to develop and flourish. Planet Earth is made of 70 percent water, and our human bodies are composed of almost 90 percent of this precious element. Water represents the flow of nature in a free, gracious, and powerful fashion. There are many philosophical and scientific reasons why H2O is vital for our mental and physical health, but the most important reason is spiritually through Jesus Christ.
When we drink from Jesus, the number of blessings we receive is more than every drop of rain that hits the ground from the heavens above. What does it mean to drink from Jesus? Many new believers are stuck on this concept because, logically, it doesn't make sense since we can't drink from a person. Drinking from Jesus is to spiritually, while bypassing our thoughts, believe and worship our Lord and Savior through practicing the faith itself. Getting on our knees and handing our hearts out to Him, reading the word, praying, fasting, and all actions that benefit our growth in this new life of salvation is drinking from the cup of Christ.
God's love for us is vaster than all the oceans combined, and His forgiveness goes deeper than the deepest point on Earth. The pressure from the deepest part of the ocean will crush us in an instant if not protected by the proper submarine. God's love for us is so deep that we are forgiven instantly when accepting Jesus into our life as protection from life's pressures.
Without Jesus, who walked on water, we walk in the endless seas of sand with the overbearing heat from the pains of sin beaming down on us. This environment replicates our eventual destination, which is infinitely worse if we don't accept Christ and drink from Him. The desert environment is extremely harsh, scorching with sin, burning love to ashes while leaving cracks and scars on our spirit like a temple ready to fall apart on itself.
"You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water." 63:1
In the barren wasteland, the sands can swallow us whole, causing us to spiral away from His promises and towards the kingdom of darkness while the light gets thinner and His hand cannot be reached. However, we don't have to meet that fate because Jesus came to us with the good news. When we slay our pride and ego, we are saying that we trust and love Jesus enough to take the drink He has for us. The Holy Spirit causes rivers to flow within us with grace, righteousness, and miracles until the desert becomes an oasis where the sweet fruits of God's works can grow.
Those who drink from the Son receive all the divine vitamins, minerals, and nutrients needed to blossom and mature as His children. The breeze sends our petals and seeds to fertile places that need a fresh start. When the spirit is hydrated with a daily intake of prayer and scripture, our minds are cleansed of thoughts that the evil one uses to add more chaos to the world. The toxins of lustful and selfish desires the world contaminates us with leaves His children full of muck and filth to the point we are unrecognizable as His creation.
"let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water." Hebrews 10:22
We need to shower ourselves and enjoy seeing the filth going down the drain. When that happens, our soul becomes crystal clear for better discernment of what's good or bad towards the walk of faith. A replenished soul manifests itself by being as much like Jesus as the believer can be. Our old self is drowned, and a new person is reborn with a rekindled identity with the only fire that can be sparked and ignited underwater. That fire is from the passion of the Holy Spirit.
The more sensitive and heightened our spiritual awareness becomes, the greater our urge to share that good drink with others who may be clustered together over the leaky faucet for a drop of hope in their lives. Some may smack the glass of water out of our hands, but we can always draw from the well of grace for when the time comes to offer the good news once more. When we break the dams that represent fear and stubbornness, God's blessings can pour out to the rest of the world, allowing for a more lubricated way of living for the lord.
On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. John 7 37:39
We all have our own way of expressing our faith in the vibrant springs of life, but we must be thankful to Jesus for providing a way to quench our thirst in the first place. If it weren't for Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, we would all be on our way to a place that makes any desert on earth look like a tropical resort. To stop that from being our next destination, we need to dig deep until we start with that first small puddle, which will eventually become a body of living waters.
Jesus answered her, "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." John 4:10
Michael Colon was born and raised in New York City and as a deep passion for writing and his faith
This article is provided as a ministry of Third Millennium Ministries(Thirdmill). If you have a question about this article, please email our Theological Editor |
Subscribe to Biblical Perspectives Magazine
BPM subscribers receive an email notification each time a new issue is published. Notifications include the title, author, and description of each article in the issue, as well as links directly to the articles. Like BPM itself, subscriptions are free.
Click here to subscribe.
|