everyone who thirsts, come buy and eat without money and without price! Just come!

God’s ways are truly higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. Our thought is that we need to do something for God, and our way is to do it from ourselves and by ourselves. God’s thought is to dispense Himself into us and be expressed through us, and His way is by becoming the living waters for us to drink and enjoy! How about that!?! All throughout the Bible we see many instances of the River of Water of Life – starting in Genesis, where there’s the river flowing, and there’s a tree there, then later there’s the cattle… and the river becomes four rivers… – this shows that God’s intention has to do somehow with the river of water(of life). In Isaiah 55 we also see that there’s a call to come and drink, and come and eat! You can come and eat and drink without price and without money! In Ezek 37 there’s a river flowing from the right side of the altar, and where the river flows, everything lives! There are many trees on the side of the river, there’s abundance of fish to eat, and there’s livestock where the river flows! In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus stood up and cried out in John 7:37, Whoever is thirsty, come to Me and drink! At the end of the Bible, in Revelation, the Spirit and the Bride in oneness invite the thirsty ones to just come and drink! And the river of water of life in Rev. 22 flows from the throne and on its banks there is the tree of life nourishing everyone!

I especially enjoyed the portion in Isaiah 55:1-3, where it says,

1. Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, And you who have no money; Come, buy and eat; Yes, come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price.
2. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And the result of your labor for what does not satisfy? Hear Me attentively, and eat what is good, And let your soul delight itself in fatness.
3. Incline your ear and come to Me; Hear, so that your soul may live; And I will make an eternal covenant with you, Even the sure mercies shown to David.

Somehow, the ones who are thirsty can come to the waters and buy and EAT! They are thirsty, yet they eat! How comes? Well, as presented above, everywhere in the Bible where there’s a river flowing, there’s also food! The river flows and the food comes out of the river flowing! The food is in the water, and the water leads us to the food! Also, the wine is simply “plant in water”(the grapes are plants and they are mixed with water), and milk is “animal life to be drunk”(the cows produce the milk)… – wine and milk are “food in liquid form“. Water is in everything and water is part of everything: part of our human body(2/3 of our human body), part of the food, part of the drinks, and part of all the vegetables and fruits! Water is vitally necessary for the growth and maintenance of life – so we need to drink both physically and spiritually! This is why the Lord likens Himself to the living waters and to the source of waters! And He calls us to Himself to come and drink!

One more intriguing thing in these verses is – “you who have no money, come buy and eat” + “buy wine and milk without money and without price” – how can you come and buy food and drink without money? Yes, all the best things in life are free, and even God’s salvation is free, His salvation is through grace, and we can never repay God for what He is and He does to us. But what is the “PRICE” we need to pay to get the water? We can’t pay money to God, and even if we could, money is no value when it comes to God… Here we see that the price we need to pay in order to gain the living waters is OURSELVES – we need to offer ourselves to Him! We just need to COME TO THE LORD and drink! How do we drink? We just come to the Lord! Don’t stay where you are, in your situation and condition – come to the Lord! Give yourself to Him! The more you consecrate yourself to the Lord, the more you drink of Him! Yes, everything is free – the living water flows freely today out of the smitten Christ; but we need to come to Him to drink! He calls us to come further to Him! We come to Him as the Lamb of God, we come to Him as the living water, and every day we come to Him again and again! Lord, I give myself to You to drink of You! – this is the best way to come to Him! Give yourself to the Lord again and again!

In John 4 with the Samaritan woman at the well, the Lord had the living water – she just needed to ask Him for it! And in Revelation in the letter to Laodicea, the Lord is standing outside the door – He’s so close, He just needs us to open to Him, and He will come in! It’s not “much”, but we need to open to Him, come to Him! Open the door of your heart to the Lord! Pay the price to incline your ear to hear His call, opening the door, welcoming the Son of Man in our being! Invite the Lord in! Let Him In! When we open, we deny ourselves; when we turn, we die to ourselves! The more we come to the Lord, the more we drink, and the more He can work Himself into us and accomplish His purpose in us! [enjoyment from message 10 of the Crystallization study of Isaiah(2), entitled, The Call to the Thirsty Ones to Come to the Waters]

Lord, we just want to come to You! Strengthen our responding to Your call! Lord, we let You in! Come in, dear Lord Jesus! Come and dine with us! Lord, we just give ourselves to You! We are thirsty, Lord – give us to drink! Give Yourself to us as the all-inclusive drink for our satisfaction! Lord, we come to the waters of life! You are the living water, Lord, becoming the many rivers of waters to meet all our needs! We just come to You, Lord!

Lord, You can my hunger and thirst satisfy – feed me, Lord Jesus, give me to drink!

Have you ever been singing a song and realized that the writer has experienced more of the Lord than you? There’s a line in a song that I’ve sung for years that says “Thou canst my hunger and thirst satisfy“. Lately I’ve been challenging the Lord on whether He can truly be everything to me. My prayer has been, Lord show me how you can fill *all* my hunger and quench *all* my thirst. This week, I received light in a section in the Life Study of Exodus Message 32.

The children of Israel had experienced the Passover, they had crossed the Red Sea, they had experienced at Marah the bitter waters turning sweet, and they had the exciting experience of the twelve springs and seventy palm trees at Elim watering them. Yet after all these events the children of Israel became hungry and unsatisfied and began to complain. We must realize that these experiences the people of Israel went through represent our experience of Christ in salvation, baptism, the Lord turning our bitterness towards Him into sweetness and the times when we really, really enjoy the Lord, like at a conference or retreat. The life-study message then says,

After we enjoy the Lord at Elim, we discover that we still have a problem with the flesh and with the lust of the flesh. This problem is caused by hunger. Deep within, we are undernourished. We have a hunger that has not been satisfied.

It seems that when we are enjoying the Lord as our daily life supply the flesh is subdued, but when we are weak and forget to eat, the fleshly things rise up in us. So the line should really be “Thou canst my hunger and thirst satisfy only if I eat and drink the Lord daily in sufficient quantities to fully satisfy me.” This is true: when I am in myself and feeling gloomy, I also lose my hunger for the Lord. I feed on the wrong things and don’t feel like being around the saints.

The Lord led the children of Israel through the wilderness for a reason. It was in the wilderness that their true hunger became evident. Deep within they still longed for the garlic and the leeks of Egypt. After their hidden desires were exposed, the Lord then gave them the daily manna as their food supply. The same it is with us: Sometimes it seems that the Lord will lead us into situations that are apparent wildernesses where we lack the daily life supply. He does this to expose our true hunger and cause us to see how fleshly we are. After this experience He can send us the daily manna to be our daily life supply.

So what do we do when we are hungry? We must learn the secret of choosing to turn to our spirit. We may at first just be able to call on His name, but if we continue to call in deep way we will spark the mingled spirit which is life. Then after a short time we will be able pray read a verse which will be food to us. It is like nursing the body to receive food after a bit of a stomach flu. The more we perfect this secret in our daily living, the less often will we find ourselves in a bad spiritual condition. How do we avoid hunger in the first place? We must daily eat the Lord in sufficient quantities to fully saturate and satisfy us. Lord make this my reality!

References: the song “My heart is hungry, my spirit doth thirst“, Life-study of Exodus, message 32. [guest post: Sharon]

Only Christ can Really Quench Our Thirst and Satisfy Us Fully

The Gospel of John shows us many instances of how Jesus, as the Incarnated God-man, came to meet man’s many and varied needs. In reading through this Gospel, we see that, in the parables and events shown, Jesus met fallen man’s need. In chapter four, man “being thirsty” displays that he is seeking for something in human life that will quench his desires, or somehow meet his need.

Consider the famous case of the Samaritan woman at the well here in chapter four. Here was one that was coming to a physical well, a place for drawing water that would quench and satisfy her thirst. Coming to this well at the heat of the day, rather than in the cool of the day, she probably realized that others would not be present. As a shamed woman who had had “many husbands,” she was seeking satisfaction in the human life, ever thirsty for a relationship that would satisfy her. Yet at this well was a man, Jesus, who somehow knew her situation, and went out of His way to come to this same well. As we read through the passage we see in verse 7: “… Jesus said to her, Give Me something to drink.” The incarnated One who asked for a drink was Himself the “living water”!

Later, in verse 10, He offers the woman the living water. Her response is to ask, in verse 11: Where then do You get this living water? Jesus then points out: “Everyone who drinks of this water [perhaps pointing to the well] shall thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water gushing up into eternal life.” (Verses 13 and 14).

The woman realized that she was thirsty and needed the living water that could quench her thirst, so that she would not thirst again! She did not need the water at this well, she needed the living water. Only Jesus can be this living water, to satisfy us, and only He can bring in healing. It is clear also that once this woman tasted of Jesus as the reality of the Living Water, she was a changed woman. Although her life was full of sin, full of disappointment and shame, she would leave her waterpot and go into the city to declare “Come, see a man who told me all that I have done. Is this not the Christ?”(verse 29).

How many do we know that seek after many things, (perhaps marrying and divorcing), trying to acquire things that will make us happy or “satisfy”? Yet, we are still empty and thirsty, and still seeking. Only Jesus can be the real “thirst-quencher”, and He is ready to satisfy our longing thirst, the empty sense within. Only He can bring us to drink of the Living Water, which is Himself. When we drink of Him, we are filled within, and we can gain true satisfaction! Oh, Hallelujah for such a drinking, that is available to us, anytime! [guess post: bro. David B.]