Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’”
John 4:13-14 NIV
Dear Friends,
Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan women in John 4 is amazing. He breaks through so many cultural barriers to demonstrate His love and show her how desperately she needs restoration. He invites her into conversation by tying their location, a well, to a picture of eternal life: quenched spiritual thirst. Jesus then points to her messed up love life—five previous husbands and living with a man she wasn’t married to—to show how she was trying to quench her spiritual thirst (John 4:15-18). From this interaction, the woman’s life is radically changed, and many from the Samaritan town believe in Jesus because of her testimony and hearing Jesus themselves (John 4:39-42).
In John 7:37-39, Jesus cries out in the temple with a similar offer of living water and eternal life. John points out that Jesus is referring here to the Holy Spirit. Eternal life and the quenching of our ultimate thirst comes from a relationship with God, not merely subscribing to abstract doctrine. In all this, Jesus makes it clear that He offers to quench our thirst and for us to have abundant life through knowing Him personally.
In multiple discipleship meetings recently, I have been meditating on Jesus’ words and considering what gets in the way of our experience of God as our living water. I believe this struggle to receive God’s offer of quenched thirst is at the core of why people seek help from Outpost. Most of us who are Christian, if we’re honest, don’t live in the tangible reality of Jesus’ offer. We know that all of us have forsaken God, the spring of living water. We know that Jesus died for us so that we could be brought back into relationship with God, our only true source of Life. But, we continue to dig our own broken cisterns that can’t hold water (Jeremiah 2:13).
So why don’t you or I live as if Jesus can and does truly quench our thirst?
First, do we really trust that the Holy Spirit dwells in us? If the same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us, why don’t we live out of that relationship with God through the Holy Spirit? Second, how do we feel about having to come to God for the water rather than doing it ourselves? The lie Satan told the human race in Genesis 3 was essentially, “God is holding out on you. You can’t trust Him to be good.” Do we really hate having to rely on God and instead want to satisfy ourselves in a way that keeps us in control?
While there are general biblical truths regarding our relationship with God through Jesus, the exact way people need to experience God’s love is different for each person. No matter who we are, we have to experience the living water. Outpost exists because people seeking wholeness in identity and sexuality generally have common patterns of why they run to particular broken cisterns. This is why Outpost offers support groups, one-on-one discipleship, and speaking opportunities. We are walking alongside people to help them encounter Jesus and learn how to walk out their new life in the Gospel.
This is also why we continually ask for prayer and financial partnership, and one of the reasons I love getting to write for Outpost. I want to see overcomers taste the living water of Jesus and begin to truly believe and experience how He satisfies better than sexual encounters or pornography. I want those seeking to walk faithfully with God while a loved one identifies as LGBTQ+ to find joy in Christ regardless of their loved one’s choices. And I want to see readers, supporters, and churches equipped to boldly and humbly speak the truth in love, being faithful witnesses to the transforming power of the Gospel. Will you join us as we seek to trust and follow God, the true and satisfying Water?
Yours in service,
