February 5 I Friday

Exodus 36-38

Matthew 23:1-22

 

“The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.’”  —John 4:15

 

Some people have said, “Well, I was a Christian and it didn’t work for me.” It is true that Christianity did not work for them, because they have not given Jesus Christ access into the deepest places of their heart. We may have known Christ in a way that has been real, but like the Old Testament people of Jeremiah’s day, we may have committed two sins against God: “They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13). If we have forsaken the fountain of living water, may we return to Christ and seek forgiveness. Otherwise, the only thing we can ever live off are broken cisterns, which will frustrate us enormously until we come back to the true water of life—the Spirit of God reigning within us. 

     

This is why Jesus Christ enters our lives to be Lord. While we are to live in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, we are to live lives that are surrendered to Him, so that He might lead, guide and direct our paths. As He does, there is a depth, which brings with it the satisfaction that we will never thirst again. 

     

Like the Samaritan woman in the New Testament, when Jesus told her, “whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst,” and she responded, “give me this water” (John 4:14-15), are we willing to let Jesus into every part of our life: into our family life, our work life, our social life and even into the life that nobody else knows about? May we humble ourselves in surrender to the Lordship of Jesus as we pray, “Lord, I need You in the very center of my life. I need the Spirit of Jesus Christ to come and live within me. Forgive me of my sin. Cleanse me on the grounds that You died for my sin and come fill me with Yourself.”

     

Jeremiah wrote the words of Lamentations 3:19-23 as he walked through the rubble of Jerusalem after its destruction. “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall.…Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” Everything Jeremiah loved had been destroyed, yet he declared, “I do not live off stale blessings or memories of what God did in the past. I live every day from the fresh supply of God as my life, my strength and my source.” God is Jeremiah’s spring of living water; is He ours too?

 

Prayer: Dear Almighty God, I confess when I tried to fill my life with other means apart from You. I need You in the very center of my life. May You come and be the Lord of my life. Amen.


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