Past Parts of This Series The Portrait Gallery of Jesus – Part 7
Pastor Randall Floyd
Clayton A/G – Church for the REST of Us!
(All Scripture quotations are from the NIV, unless otherwise stated.)
The Apostle John Gospel Wing – Portrait 7
John 7:37-38 – Water of Life
On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
Water. As essential as “bread” is to our existence, water is even more so. While a person might survive as long as three weeks without food, one week without water seems to be the maximum for most humans. Our bodies are approximately 65% water, and dehydration that causes more than 10% loss of body weight is a medical emergency that can lead to death. Water is therefore not a luxury, but vital to physical survival.
What about your spirit-man – that part of you that is the real you that will live on eternally? While it is important to feed that part of you with the Bread of Life (the Word), what about the thirst requirement? We must quench the thirsting of our spirit-man on a regular basis. Remember Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well in John 4. There He introduced Himself as the “living water” – water that would quench a person’s spiritual thirst forever.
How do we obtain this living water? The same way we obtain any good thing from Christ – believe in Him. And the results? Beyond having our own spiritual thirst quenched, we will have “streams of living water flowing from within”. We become a source for others to have their thirst quenched as we introduce them to the Lord and Savior who is capable of supplying “all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19, NASU).
One word of caution – Jesus implores us to come to Him and DRINK. That seems to indicate more than just an occasional sip. It’s impossible to have streams flowing from within if all we do is sip from Him now and then. And, the other downside to only sipping the Living Water is that we never really get enough of Jesus to make a difference in the lives of others. We get just enough to be like a little squirt from a water pistol – wet and annoying, but not thirst quenching. So – drink deep! And be a blessing to someone today!
