Drinking God’s Water rather than a Leaking Cistern

Jeremiah 2:12-14 (Amplified Bible): 12Be astonished and appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked and shrivel up with horror, says the Lord [at the behavior of the people]. 13For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, and they have hewn for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns which cannot hold water.

Indeed, it should be no surprise that the Lord said be astonished through the prophet Jeremiah, for can we imagine choosing God’s Living Waters over waters that gush forth from a broken cistern and is therefore not pure?

This however was exactly what happened in the days of Jeremiah, when the people had chosen not God but they had chosen to hew and fashion their own source of water [own source of spiritual and emotional contentment]. However, such a source of water turned out to be a broken cistern – but despite its brokenness, the people still preferred this “spring” of water rather than God’s living waters!

It is just like having a choice between bottled water – iced – and having water that is dripping onto sand. What water do we prefer to drink? Will we choose the ice cool water from the bottle or water in the sand?

Of course we will say the bottled water, therefore God, but this is not what the people were doing in the days of Jeremiah! They wanted to drink from that hot and stale water; therefore they were willfully and with intend choosing to drink from a different source.

This also happened in the wilderness after Moses went up the hill for forty days. When Moses cane down the mountain he found that the people, under the guidance of Aaron, had built a golden calf to lead them out of the desert. The people preferred to worship a dead golden calf instead of the living Lord! It was no wonder that Moses threw down the tablets of stone on which were written the Ten Commandments. What a horrific scene for Moses when he saw the people dancing and worshipping around the calf, especially after the Lord had already delivered them by His hand from slavery.

The people drew their strength and hope from a stale and broken “cistern” for how was such a dead idol going to save them? Yet God who led the people out of the clutches of Egypt and the Red Sea, He was up to that point the Lord who provided for manna and quail, was suddenly rejected.

What a travesty and what madness indeed! Who would after all choose to follow an “image” of a god rather then the real and true God Himself? But it happened. It happened also in the days of Jeremiah. And it still happens today! Preposterous indeed but still today more than ever we choose to drink our own dirty and stale and warm water – thus following our own will and way – instead of submitting and drinking at the well that never runs dry.

John 7:38: He who believes in Me [who cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me] as the Scripture has said, From his innermost being shall flow [continuously] springs and rivers of living water.

It is interesting that we live in a world where we constantly look at the external – we are continuously weighing up our joy and happiness and contentment against external factors such as the conditions in the country or the worldwide and economic climate. We as a people have fallen into this rut of pointing fingers at people and circumstances and situations as part of the “blame” game, as if this will determine if we are at peace with ourselves. We even jest to say that our spiritual condition and our spiritual health is determined by people’s action or by things that happen to us or things that are being done to us.

Let us understand that the Lord has made it perfectly clear that if we remain in Him then the living streams of water [spiritual and emotional contentment and peace and joy] will flow out of our innermost being, thus inside of us, not externally. The point is made pertinently that if we stay in Him then indeed we can be spiritual healthy. Jesus does not change day by day like the political and economic climate.

He is constant and never changes – He is the same today, as yesterday and tomorrow. It therefore remains clear that our joy and spiritual strength depends not on external factors, but on us.

It depends if we choose to follow God or our own path. It is that simple.

This is why Psalm 23 is so beautifully truthful. He is the one who leads us down to green pastures and quiet rivers, not the government, not by job, not my money and not even those close to me. Yes, they may bring us great love and joy, but in God lays the true and constant journey of fulfillment.

What does this then mean? For God says if we truly wish to be joyous and spiritually happy and blessed and also to be a blessing to others, then it doesn’t help if we seek it in external factors such as people or conditions, and neither can we place the blame on external factors.

The only way to be truly at peace and to be content is when we realise that such joy and happiness and contentment springs forth from the inside, and it can only spring forth from the inside when we abide and find our place in God.

And this is the beauty of it all – when we remain in God and draw out strength and our hope and joy and love from Him, and when that “drawing from the source” is translated into living waters then nothing on this planet should be able to shake our joy and contentment.

It is, however, when we seek to draw our strength and joy and contentment from volatile and interchangeable source, such as people or money or our work, that our world begins to feel out of control. Only God is constant as the true source of love and light and life, and when we abide and stay in Him, then truly the living waters will flow and we stay constant in our joy and happiness.

How many times have we not said that so-and-so is causing us to be unhappy, or so-and-so has caused us to be spiritually drifting away from God or that so-and-so circumstance has caused one to be bitter and angry?

But the Word of the Lord says different! Those who truly believe and follow God places not their happiness and joy and strength in such volatile external factors, causing us to constantly shift blame and to seek excuses, but they find their constant and irrefutable and fixed hope in the immovable and all powerful living God.

Our joy and hope is found in God and God alone. Foolishness dictates that that we become joyous and content when we seek to drink for a stream which flows not from God. True spiritual riches and the richness of the soul flows from the Lord who causes it to flow within us so that we may in deed and word and action bring Him glory and honour.

And this all determines our daily attitude towards life. If we are swayed by the external, our attitude will reflect such ebbs and flows of life. Our attitude will be based on external factors that are unpredictable. Yet, when we fix our spiritual compass on God, our attitude will be determined by the move of the Spirit, by the adhering of the teachings of Jesus and to the Scriptures. And by doing so, will we begin to truly live as children of the light, whose actions and deeds and words are constantly under the guidance of the Lord and whose lives are determined by our submission to God.

And this was the problem in the days of Jeremiah. The people chose not to find their solace and hope in the true source of the living waters, instead chose to find their waters elsewhere – and the prophet likened their “searching” after such a quenching of their desires as to drink from waters gushing forth from a broken cistern.

It says in Revelation 21:6: And He [further] said to me, It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I [Myself] will give water without price from the fountain (springs) of the water of Life.

Praise the Lord! To drink from the living waters is free! All that God desires is that we desire Him and that we seek Him and so remain within His eternal and stable and fixed and constant nature of love and light and hope. Isaiah 55: 1WAIT and listen, everyone who is thirsty! Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Yes, come, buy [priceless, spiritual] wine and milk without money and without price [simply for the self-surrender that accepts the blessing…

Proverbs 14:27: Reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may avoid the snares of death. Indeed, it is when we remain in God, when we submit to Him, when we follow Him, when we obey and when we serve the Lord of love, then we shall draw from the fountain of life, which is the spiritual life and which is the life of our soul.

Praise the Lord! Let us go the Lord and drink and be merry and be full of praise for our God reigns. God’s Water rather than a Leaking Cistern

Jeremiah 2:12-14 (Amplified Bible): 12Be astonished and appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked and shrivel up with horror, says the Lord [at the behavior of the people]. 13For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, and they have hewn for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns which cannot hold water.

Indeed, it should be no surprise that the Lord said be astonished through the prophet Jeremiah, for can we imagine choosing God’s Living Waters over waters that gush forth from a broken cistern and is therefore not pure?

This however was exactly what happened in the days of Jeremiah, when the people had chosen not God but they had chosen to hew and fashion their own source of water [own source of spiritual and emotional contentment]. However, such a source of water turned out to be a broken cistern – but despite its brokenness, the people still preferred this “spring” of water rather than God’s living waters!

It is just like having a choice between bottled water – iced – and having water that is dripping onto sand. What water do we prefer to drink? Will we choose the ice cool water from the bottle or water in the sand?

Of course we will say the bottled water, therefore God, but this is not what the people were doing in the days of Jeremiah! They wanted to drink from that hot and stale water; therefore they were willfully and with intend choosing to drink from a different source.

This also happened in the wilderness after Moses went up the hill for forty days. When Moses cane down the mountain he found that the people, under the guidance of Aaron, had built a golden calf to lead them out of the desert. The people preferred to worship a dead golden calf instead of the living Lord! It was no wonder that Moses threw down the tablets of stone on which were written the Ten Commandments. What a horrific scene for Moses when he saw the people dancing and worshipping around the calf, especially after the Lord had already delivered them by His hand from slavery.

The people drew their strength and hope from a stale and broken “cistern” for how was such a dead idol going to save them? Yet God who led the people out of the clutches of Egypt and the Red Sea, He was up to that point the Lord who provided for manna and quail, was suddenly rejected.

What a travesty and what madness indeed! Who would after all choose to follow an “image” of a god rather then the real and true God Himself? But it happened. It happened also in the days of Jeremiah. And it still happens today! Preposterous indeed but still today more than ever we choose to drink our own dirty and stale and warm water – thus following our own will and way – instead of submitting and drinking at the well that never runs dry.

John 7:38: He who believes in Me [who cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me] as the Scripture has said, From his innermost being shall flow [continuously] springs and rivers of living water.

It is interesting that we live in a world where we constantly look at the external – we are continuously weighing up our joy and happiness and contentment against external factors such as the conditions in the country or the worldwide and economic climate. We as a people have fallen into this rut of pointing fingers at people and circumstances and situations as part of the “blame” game, as if this will determine if we are at peace with ourselves. We even jest to say that our spiritual condition and our spiritual health is determined by people’s action or by things that happen to us or things that are being done to us.

Let us understand that the Lord has made it perfectly clear that if we remain in Him then the living streams of water [spiritual and emotional contentment and peace and joy] will flow out of our innermost being, thus inside of us, not externally. The point is made pertinently that if we stay in Him then indeed we can be spiritual healthy. Jesus does not change day by day like the political and economic climate.

He is constant and never changes – He is the same today, as yesterday and tomorrow. It therefore remains clear that our joy and spiritual strength depends not on external factors, but on us.

It depends if we choose to follow God or our own path. It is that simple.

This is why Psalm 23 is so beautifully truthful. He is the one who leads us down to green pastures and quiet rivers, not the government, not by job, not my money and not even those close to me. Yes, they may bring us great love and joy, but in God lays the true and constant journey of fulfillment.

What does this then mean? For God says if we truly wish to be joyous and spiritually happy and blessed and also to be a blessing to others, then it doesn’t help if we seek it in external factors such as people or conditions, and neither can we place the blame on external factors.

The only way to be truly at peace and to be content is when we realise that such joy and happiness and contentment springs forth from the inside, and it can only spring forth from the inside when we abide and find our place in God.

And this is the beauty of it all – when we remain in God and draw out strength and our hope and joy and love from Him, and when that “drawing from the source” is translated into living waters then nothing on this planet should be able to shake our joy and contentment.

It is, however, when we seek to draw our strength and joy and contentment from volatile and interchangeable source, such as people or money or our work, that our world begins to feel out of control. Only God is constant as the true source of love and light and life, and when we abide and stay in Him, then truly the living waters will flow and we stay constant in our joy and happiness.

How many times have we not said that so-and-so is causing us to be unhappy, or so-and-so has caused us to be spiritually drifting away from God or that so-and-so circumstance has caused one to be bitter and angry?

But the Word of the Lord says different! Those who truly believe and follow God places not their happiness and joy and strength in such volatile external factors, causing us to constantly shift blame and to seek excuses, but they find their constant and irrefutable and fixed hope in the immovable and all powerful living God.

Our joy and hope is found in God and God alone. Foolishness dictates that that we become joyous and content when we seek to drink for a stream which flows not from God. True spiritual riches and the richness of the soul flows from the Lord who causes it to flow within us so that we may in deed and word and action bring Him glory and honour.

And this all determines our daily attitude towards life. If we are swayed by the external, our attitude will reflect such ebbs and flows of life. Our attitude will be based on external factors that are unpredictable. Yet, when we fix our spiritual compass on God, our attitude will be determined by the move of the Spirit, by the adhering of the teachings of Jesus and to the Scriptures. And by doing so, will we begin to truly live as children of the light, whose actions and deeds and words are constantly under the guidance of the Lord and whose lives are determined by our submission to God.

And this was the problem in the days of Jeremiah. The people chose not to find their solace and hope in the true source of the living waters, instead chose to find their waters elsewhere – and the prophet likened their “searching” after such a quenching of their desires as to drink from waters gushing forth from a broken cistern.

It says in Revelation 21:6: And He [further] said to me, It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I [Myself] will give water without price from the fountain (springs) of the water of Life.

Praise the Lord! To drink from the living waters is free! All that God desires is that we desire Him and that we seek Him and so remain within His eternal and stable and fixed and constant nature of love and light and hope. Isaiah 55: 1WAIT and listen, everyone who is thirsty! Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Yes, come, buy [priceless, spiritual] wine and milk without money and without price [simply for the self-surrender that accepts the blessing…

Proverbs 14:27: Reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may avoid the snares of death. Indeed, it is when we remain in God, when we submit to Him, when we follow Him, when we obey and when we serve the Lord of love, then we shall draw from the fountain of life, which is the spiritual life and which is the life of our soul.

Praise the Lord! Let us go the Lord and drink and be merry and be full of praise for our God reigns.