Monday September 26, 2011

Fresh water is so refreshing on a hot day. Especially cold clear flowing water. The first time I went up Montezumas Well north of Camp Verde it was a very hot day. It seemed like 105 even in the higher elevation of Camp Verde. We parked our car and walked up a narrow path to an overlook of Lake that is formed by the two springs. Over a million gallons of water come from the springs daily and the water is used for irrigation. Although you wouldn’t want to drink from most springs until they are filtered, it was definitely a wonderful feeling to get our throats quenched by the cool water we saw.

God was speaking to the Israelite nation and to us when He talked about two sins that the nation of Israel and we have committed. He says, “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 NIV). God describes Himself as living water that we are free to drink from, but the sin that we have committed is forsaking or rejecting the living water. In the new testament, Jesus in John was speaking to the Samaratan woman and talked about this living water. “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.” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:10, 13, 14 NIV) The first sin is that of turning our back on God and the living water He is able to provide.

The second sin He defines is that of digging our own cisterns the have holes in them and can’t hold water. Cisterns were dug out places that would catch rain water that could be used for various things. The problem with cistern water is that it was dirty and didn’t smell the best. What God was concerned about is that we had turned away from a him and had begun to trust in our skills and our selves to handle our own problems rather than turning to Him to give us the living water.

On this journey, it is sometimes easier to turn to ourselves and our made made cisterns to fix our problem. But are we really fixing our selves and our problems or are we just making matters worse by relying on ourselves rather than experiencing the living water that our Lord wants to freely give us?