Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Isaiah 55:1-2a
The past two Sunday’s Brother Van has preached on Isaiah 55 which was written to God’s people in exile due to their disobedience. They were oppressed as a nation and as a people. Their spirit was broken and hungering for God. And they were thirsty, really thirsty. They were looking to quench their thirst everywhere but the right place.
They had turned to other sources for pleasure and power, away from God. By “making friends with the world,” they had brought on the judgment of God. Isaiah calls on his fellow countrymen to seek the Lord and His grace while He may be found, becausewhen judgment falls it will be too late.
To Those Who Thirst:
When we become parched and are wasting away from the lack of sustenance in all the world offers, only God can lead us back to joy, peace and productiveness in life. Our souls are hungry, and our hearts are thirsty. Seeking satisfaction in anything but God leads to a greater feeling of depletion, and there is an insatiable longing for something to fill an inner void. We are restless and almost everywhere we turn the grass is greener than where we stand. The great tragedy is that even though this is the Spirit of God beckoning us to Himself, we turn away again and again to short-run, temporary, backfiring pleasures such as sex, alcohol, drugs, cosmetic surgery, sports or some new possession.
When we become parched and are wasting away from the lack of sustenance in all the world offers, only God can lead us back to joy, peace and productiveness in life. Our souls are hungry, and our hearts are thirsty. Seeking satisfaction in anything but God leads to a greater feeling of depletion, and there is an insatiable longing for something to fill an inner void. We are restless and almost everywhere we turn the grass is greener than where we stand. The great tragedy is that even though this is the Spirit of God beckoning us to Himself, we turn away again and again to short-run, temporary, backfiring pleasures such as sex, alcohol, drugs, cosmetic surgery, sports or some new possession.
You cannot spend your life seeking temporary pleasure and find your life purpose.
Everything we seek on earth turns to ashes in our hands. It is all temporary. The thrill of lust leaves the sediment of guilt, emptiness and loneliness, not the fulfillment so desperately being sought. Drugs and alcohol can't keep you from waking up in the real world again and again with your messed-up relationships. Beauty eventually fades and every new possession is old in just a few weeks.
We Drink At Broken Cisterns - We Are Drinking Sand
The words of C.S. Lewis ring more and more true. He said, If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
In the Book of John, Jesus told a Samaritan woman he met by Jacob's Well this:
Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water I give will become a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. John 4:13-14
Jesus was talking about the living water only found in Him, the only water that truly satisfies and quenches a parched soul. It is free to everyone who comes to the waters. This week we will talk about how to get this liquid life.
Scripture to Claim:
God, You are my God; I eagerly seek You. I thirst for You; my body faints for You in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water. Psalm 63:1
