“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 @ Biblical Tamar Park, called kibbutz Ir Ovot when we
started going there in 1984. Located in
the Arava, better known as the desert and is located South of the Dead Sea,
four miles from the Jordan Border. It is
the very same wilderness where Moses and his troops wondered for forty years;
at that time is was called ‘Oboth’.(Numbers 21:10).
We have
spent time in the desert on ten different occasions covering more than thirty
years. I can honestly say in that time the only major change in the desert is
the archeologists have uncovered seven ancient civilizations and uncovered more
than 22,000 artifacts that date back to Abraham. We could say “We walked today
where Abraham walked”.
I do not
know if you are aware of the climate in Israel, but the lower parts of the
country, the Arava, tends to be a wee-bit warm most of the time. When in the Arava and much of the Negev you
have to be very careful of dehydration.
We always had people with containers of water assigned to make sure
everyone drank a full cup of water each half hour. Dehydration is called a silent killed in the
desert.
Some
rebelled against this demand stating, “I
am not thirsty I do 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 arrived
only days after the Feast of Tabernacles had ended. The Feast of Tabernacles is the most joyful
of the seven Jewish feasts or celebrations.
It is kind a combination of
thanksgiving and family camp celebration; this year the festivities included
folks from eighty countries involving more than six-thousand worshipers.
The setting
of this morning’s Scripture is Jesus with His disciples at the Feast of
Tabernacles. The weather this year was
unusual and not blistering hot. During
the times of Jesus, Canaan 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. But water is usually in short supply.
One of the
key parts during the Feast of tabernacles is that the priests descend to the
Pool and bring fresh water to the Temple as a sacrifice. At the last feast of Tabernacles before His
death, Jesus suddenly stands up and “In
a loud voice, He 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.
Blessings,
Gramps
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