June 2008

The Pastor’s Point:

Before writing this month’s Point, I read again what I had written in May.  Man-O-man, what a difference 30 days can make.  This past week has been more like August than June with temperatures reaching over 100 for several straight days.  Those smiling Pansies I spoke of in May have all but died in this heat wave and even the birds and squirrels are not as frisky as before.  If this is a foretaste of things to come, we’re in for a “long hot simmer.”

In John 4:10 & 13-14, Jesus is speaking with the Samaritan woman by the well of Sychar.  He looked on her dry and parched soul and knew what she needed, so made her this offer: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  “Everyone who drinks this water (from the well) will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Her response was what you would expect from someone who was experiencing a summer drought in her soul.  She had a thirst that could not be quenched from the well’s water, so she said, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

She may have said this with “tongue-in-cheek,” as the old expression goes, not believing that such water really existed.  It sounded too good to be true.  But in her heart of hearts, she hoped that it could be true.  Joy of joys, she was to later discover that it was indeed true.  She came to realize that what Jesus offered was a gift from God, just as he had said.

On another occasion Jesus said, “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him,” (John 7:38).  John then went on to explain what Jesus meant by his comment in verse 39a, “By this he (Jesus) meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.”

As persons come to realize the need from their dry-parched and wilted souls, how good it is to know that there is Living Water available.  It is water that only God can give and a water which revives and refreshes as it brings back a profound new joy in living.  Oh how happy are those little flowers, once on the brink of dying, which received the gift of cool water from the hand of the one who gave it. 

Is it any wonder, then, why Christians are so happy in Jesus?  They are persons who, once dying of thirst, found the source of Living Water for their life.  Clara Williams wrote the words to a poem which was later put to music of the hymn, “Satisfied.”  Note stanzas 1 and 4.

(1)

All my life I had a longing for a drink from some clear spring,

That I hoped would quench the burning of the thirst I felt within.

(Chorus)

Hallelujah!  I have found Him Whom my soul so long has craved!

Jesus satisfies my longings, thro’ His blood I now am saved.

(4)

Well of water, ever springing, Bread of life so rich and free,

Untold wealth that never faileth, My Redeemer is to me.

Thank you Clara Williams (1858-1937) for writing those words from the satisfaction of your soul in Jesus our Lord with whom you now live forever.

                                                                                    B.C.