God's Desire - to Give You Living Water

“Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.  He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, “From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38).

As you all know by now, we recently spent twenty-five days in the Apple of God’s Eye – Israel.  Of that twenty-five days, we spent eighteen days in the Arava, better known as the desert on the kibbutz Tel Tamar, now Biblical Tamar Park.  Tel Tamar, previously known as Ir Ovot, is located South of the Dead Sea, four miles from the Jordan Border.  It is the very same wilderness that Moses and his troops wondered for forty years.   At that time is was called ‘Oboth’.

We have spent time in the desert on several different occasions covering more than thirty years. And I can honestly say in that time the only major change that has taken place on the kibbutz is the archeologist have uncovered several ancient civilizations- uncovering more than 22,000 artifacts. We could say “We walked today where Abraham walked”.  

I do not know if you are aware of the climate in Israel, but in the lower parts of the country it tends to be a wee bit warm most of the time.  When in the Arabah and much of the Negev you have to be very careful of dehydration.  We always had people assigned with containers of water and made sure everyone drank a full cup full each half hour.  Dehydration is called a silent killed in the desert.

Some rebelled against this demand stating, “I am not thirsty I did not need a lot of water”.  That attitude is okay for Big Rapids or Clare, but not very wise in the deserts of the world.

We arrive only days after the Feast of Tabernacles had ended.  The Feast of Tabernacles was the most joyful of the seven Jewish feasts or celebrations.  It is kind of a combination of thanksgiving and family camp celebration and this year included folks form eighty countries with more than six thousand worshipers. 

The setting of the morning Scripture is Jesus with His disciples at the Feast of Tabernacles.  The weather this year was unusual- in that it was not blistering hot.  During the times of Jesus, Palestine was always hot no matter what time of the year it happened to be.  Some folks believe that of the desert, but we have found that is not always true.  On this trip we often had to don a sweater after the sun went down and the nights were on the cool side.

In the midst of the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus suddenly stood up and, In a loud voice suddenly said,  “Is anybody thirsty?”  Because if you are, I have water” (v. 37). He followed this profound statement with another “the water that I have never, never, never runs out.   

The question, What did He mean?.  It is here that we have agreement with most of the Bible guru’s, He was talking about the Jesus in me!  If you believe in Jesus you now have Jesus in your life.  You have His Spirit living inside you! 

And what does it look like?  What would it look like to have that living water flowing inside of you and flowing out into the world around you?   We live in a very thirsty world in that sense, a world that is thirsty for the Spirit of God.  What would it look like for the Spirit, the living water that Jesus is talking about, to be flowing in this world. 

We turn to the story of the Samaritan woman at the well for the answer, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life” (John 4:14).

Everything in our world that can be shaken is being shaken- so that only those things that cannot be shaken will last.  Therefore, all who come to Me I will in no way cast out, I will fill them with My living water that never runs dry. Signed Yeshua Hamashiah.

We visited this recently discovered Pool of Siloam last month.

Blessings,

Gramps