Water: Living or Dead?

Imagine leaving a beautiful city…
…where there is plenty of fresh water,
…where the temperature is ideal and food is abundant,
…where you can talk to God with others,
…where olive trees grow for hundreds of years and are full of fruit,
to travel across the wilderness.

You carry your own water because you can’t predict if the cisterns along the way will be contaminated or not. You tread on land where the rocks are so sharp they cut through your leather shoes. You feel the heat as if it were 125 degrees.

Can you imagine…
…the wide and dangerous wadies,
…your strength sapped by crossing beds of gravel and sand,
…being baked by the reflective rays of the sun in an hour?

And then you finally see water! Water so clear that even at 3 feet deep you can see the bottom. The desire to drink is very powerful…yet if you drink from this water, it will kill you.

It’s the Dead Sea. Over 30% salt. The more you drink of this water, the faster you will die. Remind you of sin? Yes! The desire to drink of the deceptively clear “water” of sin is also very powerful. And like gulping down water from the Dead Sea, drinking of the water of sin will also kill you.

Thirsty from walking in the desert? Don’t be deceived by the dead stuff. Only Living Water will satisfy.

But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
John 4:14

--adapted from Graham R.’s talk in Wednesday’s class, Oct. 31