Waterfall

Scrubbing Out the Cistern

/ pastorpete51 / 3 Comments

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. John 4:16 ESV

In Jesus’ day, a rain-water cistern was a common source for water. I know about cisterns, because on the farm where I lived as a teenager, that was where our water came from. But having grown up in the city I didn’t realize just exactly how dirty it could become. Then one summer I was asked to clean it when it was almost empty. First, they lowered me down by ropes and then I spent about two hours bailing out the remaining water and scrubbing the bottom with bleach water. I will never forget the mud and other assorted stuff we bailed out, and how great I felt when the following year we had a real well drilled!

The religious experience of many of us is like getting water from a cistern. We go to church on Sunday for a good scrubbing, and then get refilled for the week. After we walk out the door, all kinds of gunk falls in during the week and we need another cleaning by the weekend. But Jesus is offering more than just a good scrubbing now and then. He says that when He enters into our lives, He becomes an unending spring of pure water that leads us to eternal life. Instead of cleaning out and refilling our cistern, Jesus offers to drop spiritual dynamite into our hearts, when we come to His cross. At the cross Jesus once and for all scrubs us clean from our sins and then connects us to the well of living water that gives eternal life. There is no more scrubbing out the cistern when Jesus comes in to drill the well!

The Gift of Joy

/ pastorpete51 / 1 Comment

For in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. 2 Corinthians 8:2 ESV

Our twelve year old grandson is named Christian. Whenever Christian is happy about something he squints his eyes, rubs his hands together and smiles as wide as he can. Christian loves to tell me a joke or to give me some small gift he has made. While he is doing that he will shout out my name and sometimes even jump up and down in excitement. Some say that our grandson has special needs; but I just think that God has given him to our family so that we will know what rejoicing looks like!

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Christian with his little brother

When was the last time you can honestly say that you experienced joy like that? In today’s verse we are introduced to the little church in a town called Philippi who had a giant giving heart. They were very poor believers who had befriended Paul but they discovered first-hand what being more blessed giving than receiving really meant. Perhaps because of their own poverty they understood hunger and when they heard about people who were without food; they eagerly sent as large an offering as they could. Like us in the Western world some of the richer churches groaned when asked to give, and just grudgingly gave what they felt they had to. But the Philippians saw this as a joyful opportunity to give their best and they discovered that in God they were really rich.   They found out just as our grandson has, that giving whatever they had gave them a chance of receiving God’s overflowing joy and that was way more than they could have ever imagined!

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Anyone Thirsty?

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

When we moved to Florida, drinking the public water isn’t so great so we began buying bottled water. My wife is a big fan of Aqua Fine water while I like Dasani. But many years ago when we lived in Southern Missouri our water came from a cistern by the side of the house. It looked like a well but was just a 20 foot deep concrete lined storage tank. When it rained the rain water passed through a charcoal   filter and when it didn’t we called the water truck. I still remember the year we d

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ecided to clean it out and I was lower to the bottom to bale out the residue and scrub it out with bleach. What was down there was pretty yucky and we had been drinking it!

Jesus has a way better source of water in mind for our life than that old cistern. He promises clean fresh living water. It is a water that does not need to be pumped in but instead it springs up from the depths with a connection to the river of life. Being connected to Jesus means always having  cold clean spiritual water to drink as well as to share with anyone who is thirsty. Are you thirsty today. Jesus invitation still stands. Come to Him and find the best water of all!