The Thirst Quencher

Most of you probably play some kind of sports. If so, you should know that when you are exercising, it is very important to take in plenty of liquids. The question is, what kind of liquids should you drink? Ordinary water, of course, is a good choice, but when you go to the store, the shelves are full of all kinds of sports drinks, energy drinks, and flavored water. It is hard to know what is best.

The advertisement for one popular brand of sports drink says, "It's better than water, juice, or any other drink. It gives your body what it is thirsty for! It gets you going and keeps you going."

Wow! They have me convinced, but one thing I have noticed -- in all of the claims made by Gatorade, not once have they ever claimed that if you would drink their product, you would never be thirsty again. If somebody had something that would do that, they would really have something, wouldn't they? Well, Jesus claimed to have that very thing!

One day Jesus was walking through a town in Samaria. He was hot and tired so he sat down beside a well to rest. A woman came to the well to get some water and Jesus asked her if she would give him a drink. The woman was surprised that Jesus spoke to her because Jews would not usually speak to Samaritans. She said to him, "Why do you ask me for a drink since you are a Jew and I am a Samaritan?"

Jesus answered and said, "If you knew who was asking you for a drink, you would ask him for a drink and he would give you living water."

The woman replied, "You don't even have anything to get water in, how can you give me living water?"

Then Jesus said, "Whoever drinks from the water from this well will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst again."

Wow! Water that would satisfy your thirst so that you would never be thirsty again! Jesus wasn't talking about our thirst for water from a well, he was talking about our thirst for God. The Bible teaches us that we have a thirst in our heart for the living God -- and that is a thirst that only Jesus can satisfy. So when we have Jesus in our heart, he satisfies our thirst for God and we will never thirst again! Jesus is life! Drink it up!

Dear Lord, you have given us Jesus, the Living Water. May we drink of that Living Water so that we will never thirst again. Amen.