Are You Drinking Living Water?

I will never forget the first time I saw it happen.  I was on a ministry trip to Asia.  She was a young child with scraggly hair and worn, dirty clothes, holding a plastic bottle filled with muddy water.  As I watched in shock, she put the bottle to her lips and took a long drink, feeding the bacteria and intestinal parasites already flourishing in her swollen belly. 

Her village bordered a small lake, its only source of water.  That lake served as their all purpose laundry, bathing and toileting facility, and provided their drinking water as well.  On that trip I learned that contaminated drinking water causes more disease and death in the world each year than even hunger and famine.  That little girl was drinking in death.

We have access to pure drinking water at the turn of a tap, and wouldn’t dream of polluting our body by drinking muddy water, but what about our mind and soul?  How pure and life-giving is the material we are pouring into the rest of ourselves?  We are bombarded daily by constant information and images from the world and technologies around us.  Do we know what we are consuming?

Take television for example.  The average adult views 30+ hours of TV each week.  Two out of 3 shows viewed depict some type of sexual act, with an average of 4 sexual acts per one-hour show.  Only 6% of the sexual acts portrayed are between persons married to each other.  References to the risks and responsibilities inherent in these sexual encounters occur less than 10% of the time.  The dominant message seems to be that these activities are normal, pleasant and harmless.

Studies indicate otherwise.  Watching TV definetly affects our attitudes and behavior.  In sponsoring a recent “National TV Turn-Off Week” campaign, the American Psychiatric Association called the impact of TV viewing on behavior “a public health problem.”  It went on to state that at least one third of Americans fit the clinical description of being addicted to watching television.

And television is only the tip of the iceberg of potential contaminants that confront us daily and subtly pollute our minds and hearts with their influence.  How can we reclaim control over our souls and keep ourselves pure?  

God knows that each of us struggles with these influences and has difficulty regaining our own purity.  Jesus met a Samaritan woman who came by herself at noon to draw water at a well where He was sitting.  She picked this time to avoid the ridicule of the other women. You see, she had lost the struggle to maintain her purity and was well known for her immoral behaviors.  She probably felt very alone and rejected.

Jesus offered her “living water.”  This water would cleanse and refresh her soul and fill her with joy and renewed hope for her future.   He told her: "If you only knew the gift God has for you and whom you are speaking to, you would ask Me, and I would give you living water. Everyone who drinks this well water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the living water I give him will never thirst. It will become in him a spring of water welling up to abundant life.” (John 4:10, 13-14)

Are you drinking “living water?”  Let God cleanse and purify you with His life-giving Spirit.  Say “Yes” to Him and experience His joy and renewed hope for your future! 

Please join us this Sunday at 9:00 AM or 11:00 AM.  We will be discussing “Overcoming the Spirit of Immorality with Purity” the first part of our new “Sex in the City” series.