Quenching Spiritual Thirst
Today is extremely hot in southeastern Virginia. The heat index places the "feels like" temperature in triple digits. I'm glad for an air-conditioned office. Yesterday was pretty hot too, and we spent several hours of it at an amusement park. We got a drink as soon as we arrived and by the time we went back home, I was wishing I had more. The longer we went without quenching our thirst; the worse it got.
We have had an unusually large amount of rain lately. It has kept our lawn green and our plants and bushes happy. Usually by July, things are starting to look pretty parched around here and it only gets worse as the summer wears on. The longer we go without adequate water; the more "thirsty" the ground gets.
Psalm 63:1 addresses this same concept, but from a spiritual perspective. “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”
A couple of questions come to mind: How do you "get thirsty" for God? How do you quench a thirst for God? The first question isn't hard to answer, but it is the reverse of what we normally think. How do you get thirsty for water? Stop drinking. How do you get thirsty for God? Drink more. Spiritual thirst is the reverse of physical thirst. The longer you go without satiating your thirst for God, the less you will crave Him. Haven’t you found that to be your experience? So while you still have some thirst, drink...before the thirst goes away completely.
The second question is answered by Jesus in John 7:37. "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink." When Jesus spoke of the "rivers of living water" flowing from our heart, the text says he was talking about the Holy Spirit. Our thirst is quenched by the Holy Spirit's active presence in our lives. We receive the Holy Spirit the moment we repent and trust Jesus as our only hope of salvation. But we are 'leaky vessels" as one commentator from a previous generation said. We must continually come back to the place of filling to seek the power of God through the Holy Spirit for our daily lives.
Does that sound simple to you? Me too. So I guess there is a third question for the day. Why are we content to allow our thirst to slowly diminish? Let’s drink deeply and continually come back to the fount. I had a buddy who used to say “I want to be under the spout where the blessings come out.”
The next time you reach for a cold drink of water on one of those "dog days of summer," think about your present level of thirst for the things of God. If you are not thirsty for God; chances are you've let things slide. You have the Holy Spirit, but he doesn't have all of you. Get back in the Word; get back to prayer; get back to service for Christ; get your full and undivided attention back on him. You'll find your thirst increasing.
What are some of the practices that you maintain to keep your thirst for the things of God growing?
We have had an unusually large amount of rain lately. It has kept our lawn green and our plants and bushes happy. Usually by July, things are starting to look pretty parched around here and it only gets worse as the summer wears on. The longer we go without adequate water; the more "thirsty" the ground gets.
Psalm 63:1 addresses this same concept, but from a spiritual perspective. “O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”
A couple of questions come to mind: How do you "get thirsty" for God? How do you quench a thirst for God? The first question isn't hard to answer, but it is the reverse of what we normally think. How do you get thirsty for water? Stop drinking. How do you get thirsty for God? Drink more. Spiritual thirst is the reverse of physical thirst. The longer you go without satiating your thirst for God, the less you will crave Him. Haven’t you found that to be your experience? So while you still have some thirst, drink...before the thirst goes away completely.
The second question is answered by Jesus in John 7:37. "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink." When Jesus spoke of the "rivers of living water" flowing from our heart, the text says he was talking about the Holy Spirit. Our thirst is quenched by the Holy Spirit's active presence in our lives. We receive the Holy Spirit the moment we repent and trust Jesus as our only hope of salvation. But we are 'leaky vessels" as one commentator from a previous generation said. We must continually come back to the place of filling to seek the power of God through the Holy Spirit for our daily lives.
Does that sound simple to you? Me too. So I guess there is a third question for the day. Why are we content to allow our thirst to slowly diminish? Let’s drink deeply and continually come back to the fount. I had a buddy who used to say “I want to be under the spout where the blessings come out.”
The next time you reach for a cold drink of water on one of those "dog days of summer," think about your present level of thirst for the things of God. If you are not thirsty for God; chances are you've let things slide. You have the Holy Spirit, but he doesn't have all of you. Get back in the Word; get back to prayer; get back to service for Christ; get your full and undivided attention back on him. You'll find your thirst increasing.
What are some of the practices that you maintain to keep your thirst for the things of God growing?
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