IF YOU THIRST, JUST COME!

IF YOU THIRST, JUST COME!

As summer is winding down, and we look forward to cooler, fall weather, we still have hot weather here, and a person can get very thirsty and dry.  The garden withers in the heat of the day longing for a cool watering.  We can’t seem to get enough water in the heat, as we carry our bottles or containers of water.

And as I look at people out there in the stores, in the shops, I sense a spiritual dryness in the people around me.  Even believers have times of dryness, when the sky seems like brass, and we don’t feel those “showers of blessings” that we have had in the past.  And oh, how we long for the skies to open and pour out His presence upon us!

Are you thirsty today?  Has the things of the world not satisfied the longings in your heart.  You buy, you store up treasures for yourself and your family and you still have a deep longing for something and you can’t quite define that emptiness inside.  Jesus is calling you to just “come.”  Come just as you are, or whatever circumstance you find yourself in this day.

FOR THOSE TEARS I DIED

“You said you’d come and share all my sorrows.  You said you’d be there for all my tomorrows.  I came so close to sending you away.  But just like you promised, You came here to stay.  I just had to pray.

And Jesus said, “Come to the water, stand by my side.  I know you are thirsty, you won’t be denied.  I felt every tear drop, when in darkness you cried.  And I strove to remind you it’s for those dears I died.”

Your goodness so great, I can’t understand it.  And Dear Lord, I know now that all this was planned.  I know You’re here now and always will be.  Your love loosened my chains, and in You I’m free.  But Jesus, why me?

Jesus, I give You my heart and my soul.  I know now without God, I’ll never be whole.  Savior, You opened all the right doors.  And I thank You and praise You from earth’s humble shores.  Take me, I’m Yours!  (As sung by Marsha J and Russ Stevens)

This song is such a testimony of God’s mercy and grace.  He came, He walked this earth as a man, and gave His life and promises to share all our grief and pain.  And He promises in His Word to never leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:8). And sometimes in the midst of all our struggles, we stumble and fall, but there He is to pick us up and put us back on our feet.

When we depend on Him, He indeed opens doors, answers prayer, and makes us whole, Oh Praise the Lord!  And He sees those tears you cry.  I ran across a beautiful promise in Psalms yesterday: “You have collected all my tears in your bottle.  You have recorded each one in your book” Psalm 56:8. (NLT)

All those tears you have shed in your dark times, He sees them and puts them in His bottle, and has recorded each one in His book.  He took all your sorrows on the cross, and He deeply feels your pain and your tears. How can we comprehend such love that He has for His children?

“Ho, every one that thirsteth , come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.  Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread?  And your labour for that which satisfieth not?  Hearken diligently unto Me, and yet ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness” Isaiah 55:1-2.

So He is calling us to just come and drink freely of the water of life, life which satisfies.  All the worldly goods we may purchase will not satisfy.  The price has been paid on Calvary.  He is the Bread of Life, and He is the Life that satisfies that deepest longing.  And it all because of the cross and His sacrifice there!

“But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” John 4:14.

In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” John 7:37:38.

The water that He gives is like a well and it springs forth in our lives bringing peace and joy, and satisfies that inner longing.  It springs up giving abundant life in Christ Jesus as we walk with Him.  And it springs up bring us eternal or everlasting life with Him forever.

So if you are thirsty today, come to Jesus.  He promises by the Power of the Holy Spirit to overflow your life.  And that living water will so overflow your life that others will also see the life of Jesus in you, and come into new life with Him.  You will be able to witness of the power of the Mighty God that you serve!

This world can be a dry place, but with Jesus flowing in our lives, we can walk an abundant life with Him, and it is all because of the cross.  So we can thank Him and praise Him from “earth’s humble shores, and say, “Jesus, take me I’m yours!”

In the Name of Jesus,

Pastor Sharon