Eileen, Josh, and I are in Vancouver, where we’re preparing to board a cruise ship bound for Alaska. (This is Josh’s college graduation gift much delayed, and we’re traveling with his best friend from high school, as well as his parents. All dear friends.) We’ll be heading north and west along the “Inside Passage,” and I can only imagine the magnificence of God’s Creation that we’re about to behold with our own eyes. I hope to savor every moment, and to take lots of photographs, starting right here in Canada. Even this large coastal city is breathtakingly beautiful.
But there’s another “inside passage” on my heart as I send this communication today. It’s found in one of my favorite chapters in the Word of God. The text to which I’m referring is John 7:37-39, and it is this portion of the Bible that convinces me that God’s greatest concern for me is the “inside” work of grace that only He can accomplish. Christ is the ultimate restorer and refresher of my soul, friends, and I have no other. Deep within me, He is always at work.
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.”
I love the fact that Jesus issues a wide invitation here. No one is excluded or unwelcome. Christ is our relentless pursuer, in fact, and we respond by simply coming to Him. We come on His terms, and that includes recognizing our own spiritual impoverishment. Have you and I taken notice of our spiritual thirst? Have we come to understand our deep and pressing need for a Savior? Have we looked to Christ to fill us with Himself, as only He can do?
“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'”
Here, I think that Jesus is referencing verses like Isaiah 44:3 and 55:1, where the Old Testament Scriptures promised spiritual sustenance and satisfaction for all who would put their ultimate trust in the Lord. Christ is reminding us that He Himself is the perfect fulfillment of all such promises. Christ is our living water! And, more than that, we discover here that even our faith did not originate with us, but it’s a gift that we have freely received from God (see also Ephesians 2:8-9).
Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.
Our gracious God and Savior is substantially and eternally invested in us. The Cross and the empty tomb speak volumes. And our Lord has not left us alone, but He has given us His own Spirit. The Holy Spirit! Christ offers us, and gives us, Himself. When you and I become spiritually dry, He is always there to refresh our parched and weary souls.
In Christ, you and I are blessed indeed. Everywhere we look, we see His majesty and glory. The evidence is overwhelming, and I plan to overindulge on the evidence over the next several days. The heavens are already declaring … and the hills are already beckoning … and the seas are already roaring His great name … and I am most grateful for this opportunity to remember and to celebrate.
Perhaps you’ll join me in this prayer: Sovereign Lord Jesus, please revive me from the inside out!
Pastor Charles
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