Are you thirsty??

Are you thirsty??

Through my studies recently, God has been speaking to me so much about water! He has been emphasizing that Jesus is the fountain of living water, so here are some scriptures that go with my thought process right now.

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)

“Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’” (John 4:13-14)

“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.” (John 7:37-38)

Many times I have prayed the prayer, “Jesus, I want to be thirstier for you (yes, thirstier is a word) Please make me thirsty!” Even though I believe that this prayer is legit, I feel like God had shifted my focus on that prayer, that it wasn’t quite right. I used to think that if I wasn’t thirsty for him, then I just wasn’t thirsty. See, I think the truth is that I am thirsty; I believe that I’m very thirsty, but I go to other sources for water expecting that it will satisfy.
There seems to be something unique about the water that Jesus has to offer. Jesus’ water offers life, and promises that you won’t be thirsty again. Not only will you not be thirsty again, but you will be so satisfied that it starts bubbling up and overflows like a river from within you. Dang! Seriously, give me this water! That was the plead of the women at the well, and is now mine as well! So maybe if we feel incomplete, inadequate, unfulfilled, unhappy, broken, lacking, insecure, unloved, etc., could we possibly be drinking the wrong source of water? Could we be going to other sources for water outside of Jesus, and we are still left feeling thirsty?

This is the vision I have. I believe it goes all the way back to Eden
“And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground – trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Gen. 2:9)
I think that fruit and water is pretty interchangeable, so also is being hungry and thirsty in the bible. I find it beyond interesting that there were two trees in the middle of the garden, the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So could we possibly say that Jesus with the fruit of the spirit was in the middle of the garden, and so was our enemy, Satan, with his fruit? Take that into consideration, metaphorically speaking. So this second tree, it looked good for food, it looked pleasing to the eye, but God told Adam, “Don’t eat of it, or you will surely die!” That sounds like a pretty intense reality check to me. “Don’t eat its fruit Adam! You will die if you eat it!!” To me, that sounds more like, “Kellie! Don’t jump off the cliff Kellie! You will surely die!!” So here is my response, “Geez! God is so controlling!! Who is he to tell me what I can or can’t do!? Jerk! I’m gonna jump!”

So we all know the story, the fruit is eaten. Satan tempted Eve with this fruit that looked real good to the eye. What were they tempted with? Their temptation was to have their eyes opened, to be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil. It seemed good for nourishment, so they went for it. After they ate, their eyes were in fact opened, and they realized that they were naked, so they tried to hide their nakedness and hid themselves from God because they were full of shame.

Could we surmise that the fruit that Satan tempted them with, the fruit that they ate of was poisonous? They ate a poisonous apple that brought sickness and death to their bodies. Something in them died that day. What was God’s response to this? “Who told you that you were naked!?” He immediately recognized that they were lied to. God didn’t tell them that they were naked; they told Him that they were. It seems they then had a very distorted view of good and evil. God said it was good that they were naked, but after eating the fruit offered, they felt as though it was evil. I don’t believe that they even recognized their nakedness until the shame crept in. Could it be that their nakedness represented their unashamed relationship with God? Could being naked in front of God mean being fully open, fully real, fully free in love, and fully vulnerable to him? Like a little child that has no sense of self awareness, they just do everything so unchecked, so sure of themselves; could God desire this kind of confidence with him? It’s not until we are older that the world makes its way into our minds, polluting us, or when Satan starts to lie to us and we believe him, and that is if you were lucky enough to grow up in a healthy home. Back to the point, David danced naked and completely unashamed in worship to God, and he was called a man after God’s own heart. It seems so much more natural to hide from God, to cover ourselves with leaves, the leaves of good works, false humility, you know, putting on the show, or cleaning the outside of the cup? Could we call that legalism? Do you catch what I’m saying? God doesn’t want us to hide. He longs for us to be open and honest with him, because he can’t change us if we aren’t honest with him and with ourselves. So yes, they were naked, but God intended it to be that way, but Satan tempted them into disobedience and filled them with shame of sin, so they became aware of their nakedness and hid.
So after they became aware of their nakedness he said, “Cursed are you!” Again, sounds like a pretty big reality check. “Adam, Eve, you are cursed!” That is not the same as “I CURSE YOU wicked little wretches!” by the way. God was simply stating to them the reality of the consequences of their actions. When you eat a poisonous apple, or when you drink polluted water, the reality of what happens to you are the consequences of sickness and possible death.

So what is the point that I am trying to make? First off, I don’t believe that God ever intended us to know the difference between good and evil. We are so preoccupied with what’s right and what’s wrong, or what’s good and what’s evil, that we can’t even love one another anymore. I believe that eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil gave us permission to come into agreeance with Satan and his lies, choosing for ourselves what is good for us and what is not, and that was never God’s intention for us. Now we have no choice but to discern between good and evil in order to make good decisions for our lives, to come back into agreeance with God. That is what repentance is; it is acknowledging that we have turned from God in our lives and it is coming back into agreeance with him, saying that we agree with him and believe that his way is the best way for us. Repentance leads to obedience, which leads to a restored, free, naked and unashamed relationship with God.

See, when Satan tempts us, he is offering us fruit that looks good to the eye, but when we believe him, when we buy into his lie, when we eat of his fruit, a piece of us dies, and we are filled with shame, so as a result, we hide from God. We separate ourselves from God, from relationship with him. When we are disobedient to God, we are turning away from the reality and truth of this world that God speaks over us, so then we are coming into agreeance with Satan and what he says is good, eating the poison that he feeds us. Disobedience is believing Satan and what he says is good for us over believing God and what he says is good for us. See, I believe that we can choose to eat the fruit of Jesus, from the tree of life, and gain life, or we can eat the poisonous fruit Satan offers and die inside. Disobedience leads to sin, and sin is settling for something less than what God has to offer us.

Faith was what God desired from his people for restored relationship in the Old Testament. Abraham had faith, and it was credited to him as righteousness, but by the time that Moses led the Israelites out of the desert, they had such a distorted view of reality, God had to give the law to them so that they could know again the difference between good and evil. God’s own people didn’t even know anymore, so the law was written to mirror sin. It was meant to bring life, but since we were never meant to discern good from evil in the first place, it only brought death. It is impossible to earn our way back to God, so mankind desperately needed a savior!
Jesus came to restore our relationship back to God! He came in the very image of God, showing us His true character and nature. He came and was filled with grace and truth, that is, unconditional love for mankind and the truth of this world! He came to set us free from the bondage of sin and to lead us back into fully restored relationship with God through grace and truth! Through His finished work on the cross of Calvary, he opened a door for us to walk through, into the Kingdom of the Living God, covered in His blood, and established in righteousness! Believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior allows us to boldly approach the throne of God, back in right and perfect standing with Him, as sons and daughters! This is the truth of who we are in Jesus, and Paul has called us to live out what we have already obtained in Christ Jesus, our Lord!!

Jesus has come so that we may have life, and have it to the full! (John 10:10) He has come to break us from the bondage of the reality of this world, and has called us as believers into the reality of heaven and His kingdom! He tells us to put our focus into what is unseen, and that is having faith in Him and what He says to be true! The Kingdom of Heaven is here, and it is our call as the body of Christ, as His hands and feet, to walk out His call on our lives! We have to follow Him! And we can’t do any of this without faith. Ask God to build your faith today! He longs to give you the extreme faith it takes to follow His will for your life. If you’re not seeing miracles in your life, you are not exercising faith. He’s there, waiting, longing for you to come to Him today, right now even.

Two more scriptures:

“As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.” John 12:47

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:17

See, Jesus didn’t come to bring judgment on mankind, for He loves us with an inconceivable love! In other words, He has not come to judge the person but to bring justice to the sin! He came to save us from our enemy, from the bondage of sin in this world. I’ll say it again, He has come to bring justice to sin, not to humans. The wages of sin is only death, so believing in Jesus and Jesus alone establishes us in righteousness and into doing the very works of Christ, and even greater things! With Him as our Lord, He leads us out of the death grip of sin and into freedom, and then calls us to do the same! What a privilege! What an honor!! He’s come to deliver us out of the false belief system of this world, into His love, into His truth, so we in turn can turn around and become world changers doing the same for others as He has done for us. When we believe this, when we believe in Him, we are declared as righteous, and sin and death no longer has any reign over us. We are free in Christ! He brings justice to the sin in our lives, casting it out in us and setting us free into eternal life! Hallelujah!!

So my final question is, are you thirsty? If you are looking to any other source to fulfill you outside of Jesus Himself, you will be left empty, wanting more, but never getting enough. If you go after the tempting fruit of Satan, death will enter your body and you’ll be trapped in the bondage of sin in which repentance will be your only way out. Only the work and leading of Jesus in our lives can set us free. Only He gives us living water, the source of life, that will satisfy, fill us, and we will be so overwhelmed by it, it will in turn pour out of us onto others! Thank you Jesus!!