The Gift of God

"Living water" this is what we must know about. What does he mean when he calls this gift "living water"? He means that it is life-giving, it is enlivening, it is invigorating. Do you have this life in you? Or do you have to drag yourself to worship God? Do you have to force yourself to live the Christian life? Are you a bit ashamed of it when you mean your clever friends in the world? If so, there is something radically wrong. It is "living water." It is not some cold, detached, theoretical, intellectual understanding of a number of doctrines. Yes, it is an understanding, but if it does not give life to you, if it does not enliven you, if it does not move you, if it does not invigorate you, you do not have living water.
What else? Well, it is always fresh. It snot water stored in a cistern; it is not static water. It comes out of a well opened on Calvary's hill, opened in the heart of God; it is flowing, and it constantly comes with its new stream, always fresh, always living. So much Christianity seems to be stale, does it not? It is old, it is ineffective, it is dull, it is lifeless, it is insipid; you feel it needs to be purified. And the world is not interested in it because it looks at it and sees the scum on the surface and the things that should not be there. It does not see the sparkle, it does not see the light, the living quality. Oh, what a travesty all this is of the true Christian life and the true Christian message!
Finally, this water lasts. "Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." Whatever may happen in the world, in the whole cosmos, nothing can stop it; it springs up into everlasting life; it goes on forever. There will never be a shortage; there will never be a drought; there will never be a lack of supply. So not merely is your thirst satisfied, but you have lasting life and power and you are ready to meet the world, the flesh, and the devil and anything that may come against you in this year and all the years that may be left to you."