Living Water or Waterless Spring?
The Bible is filled with great truth, as well as wonderful imagery that helps bring greater understanding and helps bring the word alive in your mind. One thing used in many different illustrations is water. Just in the last couple of days I have come across it in several settings and the combined effect has been to ask in me this question, “Am I overflowing in Living Water, or am I a waterless spring?” Which one are you?
This past Sunday at King’s Hill Church our sermon was on John 4. The passage centers around a Samaritan woman who comes to a well to draw water where she encounters Jesus. Jesus says to the woman in verse 10, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” Jesus continues in verse 14, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Jesus tells the woman, and us today, that he provides living water that will be working within us that leads to eternal life. What good news!
Today in my personal reading of the Bible I read both of these verses:
“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word our God will stand forever.” Isaiah 40:8
“These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm.” 2 Peter 2:17
Peter had been talking about false prophets throughout 2 Peter 2. He says their message is not true (v. 4), they do not tremble before God (v. 10), they love their sin (v. 14), and they are enticing to others (vv. 2, 14). Ultimately, by both their words and deeds they prove themselves to be waterless springs. There is nothing life giving that is within them. Their well is empty.
I had read the passage in Isaiah first, but after picturing this waterless spring compared to the Living Water that Jesus offers, I was reminded of Isaiah 40:8. The grass will wither without water, the flower will fade without the nutrients of water, but the word of our God will stand forever! The promises that God makes will never go away. They will be an endless, overflowing spring of living water!
In fact, Peter quoted Isaiah 40:8 in one of his other letters (1 Peter 1:24-25). He sums it up this way, “And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:25). The true message of God and what he has done through His son Jesus will stand forever. This word is now found within the Bible. It is our standard of truth. Those that follow this truth, who follow Jesus without deviating, will not be a waterless spring but instead will have within them a powerful spring of Living Water.
I have to ask myself and I ask you, if we examined your life would it more resemble a waterless spring or a spring of living water? Are you prone to follow the enticing of others and be led to waterless springs (2 Peter 2) or do you dive into the water of truth?
What is one change you can make today to be more in God’s word?
If you’re looking for a Boston church to call him, we’d love for you to visit King’s Hill.
