Thirst...

John 4:13-14 “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 

How much time do we spend chasing after things that will never satisfy?

• If I could make more money...
• If I could have more relationships...
• If I was more successful in my career...
• If I could have a nicer home...

The problem is that once we attain these things that we spend so much time chasing we realize they don't satisfy; therefore we must have more and more and more.

It's like the Oasis in the desert that we can never quite get to. It's like the field goal post that we keep chasing after, but every time we get close to it the post moves a little bit further away.

If you keep 'drinking this water' you will have to come back tomorrow, and then you will have to come back the next day. 

BUT, if you spend your life pursuing Jesus Christ you will find the satisfaction that you long for. 

Only Jesus can fill the void in your life, only Jesus can give you the purpose worth living for. 

What are you Chasing after?

What kind of response to the news of Christ would be a proper response?

David says the following in Psalm 63:

“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

This is a yearning from his depths.

There is in these lines—if you’ll understand the sense of the words—a violence, a lust. With an active, soul-deep desperation, David is crying out, “God, I’ve got to have You.” This sense continues:

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips. (vv. 2–5)

For David, God is not some distant grandfather type or some idea to noodle around with intellectually. God is all-consuming.

When I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me. (vv. 6–8)

I am fearful that, in general, modern evangelicalism has become uncomfortable with this sense of all-consuming passion for God.

We love the feelings in a worship experience, but David was not pursuing experiences—he was pursuing God.

And so when David says in Psalm 42:1–2, “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God,”

We turn it into something tacky, by making it cute and putting it under a picture of a deer on a T-shirt or coffee mug.

But it’s not cute. David is in pain. He’s crying, “Why can’t I get there? Why can’t I get more of You?”

He does it again in Psalm 27:4: “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.”

Is this desperation something that typifies your life today?

Like Moses crying out, “I want to see You, Lord! I want to see Your glory” (Exod. 33:18).

Can our singing, our preaching, our prayers, our books, even our blogs and tweets and Facebook updates be said to reflect upon the fact that we are yearning for God?