Vital Christianity

It has not rained for a long time. Everything is dried out. The heads of the flowers are drooping. The fruit is languishing and looks pitiful. The earth is waiting for the refreshing moisture of heaven that still shows no sign of coming. What a sad picture!

Does not the spiritual condition of the world look like this as well? It is a pitiful picture that we see before us. People who are to be like trees planted by the rivers of water, bringing plentiful fruit in due season, are more like a dry desert internally, and they let their heads hang. Those who should be drinking from the fountain of living waters have instead hewn for themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water (Jeremiah 2:13). The prophet has well said: “The poor and needy seek water, but there is none, their tongues fail for thirst” (Isaiah 41:17). 

It has been related that in the burning desert there were bones of humans found, not only on the way to an oasis but also very close to the source of water. Dying of thirst and filled with the desire to receive a cup of life-giving water, some dragged themselves to the source and were found lifeless with a cup in hand. Some had the hope of finding water when they saw palm trees in the distance. After great effort, they finally arrived only to find the cisterns empty. With hopeless eyes, they looked into the empty pits or with desperate thirst drank the last drops of muddy water from the dirty ground only to further aggravate their thirst. These poor, desperate souls sunk to the ground, for all hope had vanished. Some cursed, others wailed in anguish, and so they collapsed and died of thirst. But after a time, the sky grew dark, thunder rolled and lightning flashed, and the refreshing rain came down and even wet the pale lips of those dead corpses.

This is truly a horrible and pitiful picture. But is this not exactly the spiritual state many people find themselves in? There are so many cisterns in the world. People flock to the entertainment centers and seek to quench the desperate thirst of their souls. They wish to relieve the burning emptiness inside. Yet dirty puddles can never quench their thirst. They stagger from desire to indulging, and in indulging they languish from desire. Does this have to be the case?

No, it is unnecessary. Humans were not intended to be like empty, dead skeletons upon the earth. No one was meant to go through life thirsty, miserable, and languishing only to perish unsatisfied. Someone came into this world, and through His bitter suffering and death, through the cross, dug a well in which there is living water for all to drink and satisfy their thirst. Jesus said: “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14). 

Dear Reader, you are invited to drink of this water. More than that, you are not only to drink of this water, but it is to become in you a fountain of water that never shall run dry. This will only happen if you claim for yourself what Jesus, the Son of God, has done for you. You will not only have enough for yourself, but you will have an abundance so that many others whom you have contact with can reap the benefits of the grace that you received. “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). 

A. Borbe

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