Suggested reading: John chapter 4 verses 1-26.

At the time of our previous meditation on WATER, we were entering a very warm period of weather in the UK, when we were being warned of the importance of drinking plenty of water to avoid dehydration. I am sure that many people heeded the warning and well above average amounts of cold water were drunk at this time. It is disappointing that most people are totally unconcerned about their spiritual well-being!

Solomon, a King of Israel noted for his wisdom, wrote these words: ‘As COLD WATER to a weary soul, so is good news from a far country’, Proverbs chapter 25 verse 25. When we are tired or exhausted, a drink of cold water does us good and revives us.

On one occasion Jesus became weary during a lengthy journey to visit the city of Samaria. At noon, when the sun was at its hottest, He sat by a well and asked a woman from the area, who had come to draw water, to give Him a drink. This would have been a remarkable and abhorrent sight for a Jew to witness. We discover that not only was she a woman but she was an adulteress (she had been married five times and was now living with a man, who was not her husband!). Nevertheless, Jesus had come to call sinners to repentance; therefore, He moved his conversation with her away from physical need (a drink of water), to her spiritual need (living water – a different kind of water altogether). Indeed, He would go on to show her that He had come from a far country (heaven) to show sinners, like her, the way of salvation. The water that He came to give cleanses and purifies us from sin and springs up like a fountain within us!

Paul reminds those of us who are Christians that there was a time when heaven was a far-off country to us. As sinners, we were ‘without Christ . . . . having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were afar off have been brought near by the blood of Christ’, Ephesians chapter 2 verses 12-13.