Drink and be Satisfied

​There are very few things as essential to human life as water.  The average human likely cannot go longer than three days without water before serious damage or death occurs.  Humans can go much longer without food.  Thus, about the only thing more essential for human life than water is oxygen.  It’s for this reason, throughout world history, nations were established and civilizations grew around water routes.  Wars have been fought over water rights.  This is because to withhold water from a group of people is to essentially give them a death sentence.  So it’s interesting then to hear Jesus say to the woman at the well in John 4, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but 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” (vv.13-14).  But what water is Jesus speaking of?  Where does this water come from and how does it eternally quench our thirst?  In John 7:37 Jesus says this: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.  Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”  Thus, the living water Jesus offers which will eternally quench our thirst is himself.  Even if we drink from the coolest, cleanest, most refreshing water in the world, ultimately, it will leave us wanting.  But for those who drink deeply from the living waters of Christ, who take him in and consume all of Christ, their souls will be satisfied and they will never want for more.