Sometimes do you find yourself feeling empty... do you feel dry... do you not know where to turn to be filled... do you try to fill that void in all kinds of different ways? I have DEFINITELY felt these things before through out my life. I think we all do. Still now as I press forward with God I forgot where to go to be filled, to quench my thirst...
"Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. 38“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 John 7:37
Where am I going to be filled? To my true Source or do I turn to doing things to make me feel full if even for a moment? I really love the doing. I love the planning and researching and Holy Spirit leading me in finding. But the question is where am I going to be filled? Am I going to God... Or am I going to the doing? Lord please create in me (in us) a heart that loves You first, loves You most and lives for You and runs to You to be filled. It's only You who can change this in me (in us) and place these areas of my heart in the order You designed them to be in.
A few weeks ago a very awesome friend (thank you God for friends :) ) gave me a picture of a tree on the edge of a body of water with it's roots down in there. I am like a tree on the edge of the water with my roots down in there (thanks to Jesus I am connected to the living water) but when we believe in Jesus and COME to Him we really begin to absorb that living water. The living water flows through us like water to a tree, transforming us into the "trees" we were made to be! A beautiful tree, reflecting You God! When we try to live on our own however without tapping into that living water we literally will come up dry... Often resulting in disappointment, frustration, anger, etc. And we remember Jesus's words... "Apart from Me you can do nothing." Apart from Him we have nothing to sustain us, give us hope, to change us, to fill us. It's all about the living water. Where am I drinking from? I need to get a drink from somewhere. Is it from my true Source or am I trying to find satisfaction for my thirst in other ways? A tree cannot get its nourishment and need for water from any where else, it must come from the source, through the roots... We are the same. We were made with a thirst and it can only truly be filled one way... from our true Source, Jesus. I looked up the verse John 7:37 online and a sermon by John Piper popped up... Here is part of it!
"1) Three Things Implied in Thirsting
Verse 37: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.” It seems to me that there are three wonderful things implied in the words “if anyone thirst.” First is that the gift of the water is free. The condition you must meet is need. “If anyone thirst.” That’s the condition. And the action you must take is to drink. Receive the gift. There is no thought here of earning or meriting. Anyone. Anyone who knows his own thirst is invited.
Second, the human soul has thirst. We know he is not talking about physical thirst. That’s clear. But what he is saying is that the soul has something like physical thirst. When you go without water your body gets thirsty. And the soul, when it goes without God, gets thirsty. Your body was made to live on water. Your soul was made to live on God.
This is the most important thing to know about yourself. You were made to live on God. You have a soul, a spirit. There is a you that is more than a body. And that you, if it does not drink from the greatness and wisdom and power and goodness and justice and holiness and love of God, will die of thirst.
Third, implied in the word “thirst” is that what Jesus offers is satisfying. The aim of all theology, all study, all biblical learning, all preaching it to spread the satisfying banquet for you to eat with joy, and to protect the kitchen from poison. The aim of cooking is eating. The aim of digging wells and clearing springs is drinking. Everything Jesus came to do and teach is aimed at providing the soul with food and drink that satisfy forever.
That’s what I see in the word “thirst.” The water is free. The soul has a thirst. And Jesus aims to satisfy the soul forever.
2) Three Observations About Coming to Jesus to Drink
Versed 37–38: “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.’” Three observations:
First, Jesus is what we drink. “Come to me and drink.” Jesus doesn’t just have what our souls need; he is what our souls need. Recall John 6:35, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” He is the bread of life. He is the living water. Our souls were made for Jesus. The ache in our hearts is at root an ache for Jesus. This is how the soul lives on God. It lives on Jesus.
Second, the soul can drink. It can swallow. He is speaking spiritually, not materially, when he says, “Come to me and drink.” This drinking is not something you do with your mouth and your throat. You do it with your soul. You do it spiritually. You were made to do this. You are not a mere animal. You were made for this—coming, not physically, but spiritually, to Jesus, and drinking, swallowing the water for your soul that he is.
Third, this coming and drinking are what it means to believe on Jesus. Verses 37–38: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me . . .” That last phrase is another way of saying come and drink. Coming and drinking Jesus is what happens when we believe. It’s what believe means.
We saw it in the parallel structure of John 6:35: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Believing on Jesus is coming to him to eat and drink for our soul’s deepest satisfaction.
So be done forever with the sad notion that saving faith—that believing on Jesus—is a mere decision to believe facts. No. It is a coming to him as a feast. A treasure. A banquet. A spring in the desert when we are dying of thirst. This is what the apostle John meant when he connected believing on Jesus and receiving Jesus in John 1:12. Believing is receiving him as water, food, life for the soul.
So those three things: Jesus is the water we need, the soul does the drinking, and that is what believing means—coming to Jesus to drink for our soul’s satisfaction.
3) The Rivers That Flow from the Soul
Verse 38: “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Literally, it says, out of his belly. But the point is our inner being, call it belly, heart, soul, spirit. What does this mean?
It means that when you come to Jesus to drink, you don’t just get a single drink, but you get spring, a fountain, a well. You get Jesus. Rivers of water will flow because a River-Maker is in you. That’s the point. You will never have to search again for a source of satisfaction for your soul. Every river that needs to flow for the joy of your soul will flow from Jesus. When you come to him, you get him. And he never leaves.
4) The Spirit of the Glorified Jesus
Verse 39: “Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
There was an experience of the Spirit that could not be enjoyed until Jesus had died for our sins, been raised triumphant over death, and ascended to the right of the Father in glory—namely, the experience of fellowship with the Spirit of the glorified, risen Christ. This is what the Father gives to everyone who believes. The presence and power and fellowship of the Spirit of the risen and glorified Christ.
Once Jesus was with us as an incarnate man, and now he is in us by his Spirit. Listen to John 14:16–17: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”
And he is indeed in everyone who believes on Jesus. Remember what Paul said in Romans 8:9? “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” If you come to Christ to drink for your soul’s satisfaction, you get Christ. And now we see that he means: You get the Spirit—the Spirit of God and of Christ.
Christ, as the incarnate Son of God, is in heaven. We can’t see his body now. We walk by faith and not by sight. But he is in us (Romans 8:10). We have the Spirit of the risen and glorified Christ living in us. Which means Christ is in us.
5) The Witness of Scripture to the Plans of God
Verse 38 again: “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”
There are so many Old Testament texts that point to this reality. Let me give you just one. Isaiah 58:11: “You shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”
But here is the way we should end—the really wonderful implication for us that God spoke of this reality hundreds of years before it happened. It means that God was planning this for you. God was planning to send his Son. He created you to have an unquenchable soul thirst that could draw you to him. He planned for Jesus to stand in Jerusalem, and for me to stand in this pulpit, and cry out: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me [Jesus] and drink.”
This is God’s invitation to you. Not just mine. Not just Jesus’s. But God’s. Come, drink, live."
- John Piper
(http://www.desiringgod.org/
When He says "come to me" John Piper teaches here that that means to believe in Him. I believe He is always in us once we believe in Jesus but I also believe we can make a DAILY CHOICE TO COME TO HIM, to believe in Him for the things we need so badly... Love, healing, life, peace, comfort, change. Coming to Him could possibly be through just thinking on and believing in Him, praying and believing Him and maybe reading and meditating in the truth of His Word and who He is. I think as we do these things we are coming to Him, believing Him and in return we are transformed and supplied with everything we need. But it all comes from Him and from the waters that flow from Him. "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' " John 14:6 Praying for each of us that instead of looking for another fulfilling source for our never ending thirst that we can each come daily to our One True Source... the Lord Jesus Christ :) and that we may be filled! He is faithful to fill us if we'll only come to Him!
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