Are you thirsty for a transformed life? You’ll have to do this …

Few people are so self-aware and self-disciplined that they pursue truth and embrace change throughout their lives.

Too many of us long for change only when we’ve become sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Do you really thirst for a transformed life? Then you’ll have to do this …

“To quench thirst it is necessary to drink. Reading books about it only makes it worse.” – Jean-Pierre de Caussade.

In studying scripture, have you ever noticed how, when the people of Israel are described, it can sound just like living in 2016? That’s certainly true when we read this from Jeremiah 2:13 …

“For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me — the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!”

Jennifer Cronk provides some insight to this verse of scripture as follows:

For those of you who are scratching your heads and wondering what the heck a cistern is, it is simply a container made for catching and storing or holding water. The people in Biblical times used to set out these giant pots to collect rainwater, as a simpler alternative to a well. What Jeremiah was saying was that the people of God, rather than living in a state of joyful dependency on their Heavenly Father, had instead resorted to a prideful approach to religion. The cisterns weren’t literal — they were a picture of what they were doing spiritually.

Israel had become self-righteous. Instead of coming to God for righteousness, they were trying to create it themselves. They were filling their cisterns with meaningless rituals and ceremonies that were done out of obligation rather than gratitude and love. They thought they could be good enough to satisfy God, rather than depending on His goodness to change them from the inside out. They were appeasing God, rather than enjoying Him.

Doesn’t that sound like a description of Americans and others in the West? We claim we’re thirsting for a transformed life, yet we refuse to drink!

Jean-Pierre de Caussade, a Jesuit priest and contemplative writer who is best known for his thoughts on “self-abandonment to divine providence” and “the sacrament of the present moment,” was quite right in his concise statement, “To quench thirst it is necessary to drink.”

Jesus said the same thing, but with authority and specificity …

“Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life,” John 4:13-14.

“Jesus replied, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty,'” John 6:35.

“On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, ‘Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’ (When he said ‘living water,’ he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.),” John 7:38-39.

Earlier in His ministry, Jesus teaches us about having a thirst for the right thing, and how God would respond …

“God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied,” Matthew 5:6.

And we read in the Psalms what it looks like to be a man whose thirst is for God Himself …

“As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him?” Psalm 42:1-2.

To quench thirst, it is necessary to drink … to drink of the living fountain that is Christ! Life is a choice between broken cisterns or a living fountain — have you let Christ quench your thirst?

Scotty