Thirsty,  Then Come!

Do we have a desire to know Jesus?   Are we thirsty for something to fulfill our lives?  Are we thirsty for Him?

John 7:37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If any man thirst, let him  come unto Me, and drink.”

Jesus speaks of a symbolic thirsting akin to the actual  thirsting the Jews had suffered during their forty year trek in the desert. As water is necessary for physical survival, He is to our spiritual survival.  Jesus draws the  connection between water and the life-giving Spirit.  Where there is no life-giving Spirit, there is no life.

The Feast of Tabernacles,  A Reminder

God gives instructions to help people remember.

Leviticus 23:41a And you shall keep it a feast unto the LORD  seven days in the year. It shall be a statute  forever in your generations;

The Past Reminds Us  We Are Not Self Sufficient

This was one of three great feasts established after  the Exodus. God wanted to remind His people of the  years of mobility and  homelessness when they had lived  in temporary dwellings before He brought them into the Promised Land. They needed to remember when  God provided them with all that they needed.

Numbers 20:8  Take the rod, and gather the assembly  together, you, and Aaron your brother, and speak you unto    the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water,  and you shall bring forth to them water out of the rock:  so you shall give the congregation and their beasts drink.

Each day during the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles,     a chief priest would go to the pool of Siloam, fill a golden  pitcher and carry it back to the temple, then pour it over  the altar to remind the people of the days in the barren  wilderness when God gave them water out of a rock.

It was a mixture of remembering God’s blessing  in the past and also remembering  God’s goodness even now.

We Will Never Be Self Sufficient

John 7:37  On the last day, that great day of the feast,  Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If any man thirst,  let him come unto Me, and drink.”

We Seek Scripture  For Recall and Guidance

John 7:38  He that believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”

Nehemiah 8:17  And all the congregation of those  who had come again out of the captivity made booths  and sat under the booths; for since the days of Joshua  the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of  Israel done so. And there was very great gladness.

In some Jewish thought, this pouring out of water at the Feast of Tabernacles was symbolic of God pouring out His  Holy Spirit in the last days. God had saved them in the past, but there was a time coming when God would pour out His Spirit in abundance upon them, so that the same feast looked both backward and forward in anticipation.

It signaled a time when the life-giving Spirit would be poured out on the people of God, flowing over the  whole earth—a time expected in the Messianic age.

This is focusing on how the life-giving Spirit which God  provides in Christ wells up within the believer.  His Spirit wells up within the believer, transforming  the individual, providing life, and vitality.

Psalms 1:2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,  and on His law does he meditate day and night.  1:3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water  that brings forth his fruit in his season. .

Those who follow God’s Word, will metaphorically be like a tree planted by streams of water,  whose leaf does not wither and who bears fruit in season. The vitality, the life, and the water are within the believers, transforming them into spiritually vital people.

John 7:39  But this He spoke of the Spirit, for the Holy Spirit  was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

By this he meant the Spirit, that is, he refers to water,  but this was a metaphor for the Spirit, whom those who       believed in Him were later to receive, after Jesus ascends.

In the New Testament we read that we are in a new age, that we belong to a new creation. We are under a new  Covenant; we have new life; we have experienced a new  exodus. We enjoy a new birth.  New, new, new!

Revelation 21:6 And he said unto me, “It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” 17 And the  Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let him that hear say, “Come.” And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will,  let him take the water of life freely.

Jesus comes upon us in the wake of His incarnation, death,    and resurrection. He comes upon us by His Spirit. God says,

“I will be their God and they will be my people.  I will dwell among them.”