In Isaiah and in Jeremiah we see God dealing with His people, and many times we have the impression that “God wants to punish Israel” – all those judgements, wars, etc. But there is a verse in Jeremiah that sheds some fresh light on what God desires from His people, how does He want to be related to Israel – and this verse is Jeremiah 2:13, which says,
For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, which hold no water.
Here we see that even though the book of Jeremiah talks about God’s wrath and His discipline / chastising of the people of Israel, what He considers as the evils that His people did before Him is NOT that they didn’t obey the law, or didn’t do this or that – but simply that they left Him, the fountain of living waters, and went to other sources.
In His economy, God’s intention is to be the fountain (the source) of living waters in order to dispense Himself into His chosen people for their satisfaction and their enjoyment! Living water is for us to drink and enjoy, and this water makes us living! God’s desire towards His people is so positive – He wants to become the living water coming into them, enlivening them, empowering them, and strengthening them to live a life for His purpose!
What is the ultimate goal of this drinking of God as living water? It is that God would have a people on earth that expresses Him fully – the church, God’s counterpart, something that comes out of Christ and is Christ, as His full expression on the earth (John 3:29-30).
This is what God always wanted and will always desire: a people open to Him, coming to Him to take Him in as living water, and then flowing out from this people to reach others – to gain His corporate expression on the earth!
Just like the Samaritan woman in John 4, we all are thirsty, and we all try to satisfy our thirst with other things – we “hew out for ourselves cisterns” – yet though these other things MAY satisfy us for a while, they still leave us, in the end, thirsty and dissatisfied! Only God as living waters coming into us can fully quench our thirst!
Actually, the more we try to taste other things, the more we realize that we’re hewing out cisterns that are broken – that hold no water! We may try entertainment, we may try to feed on movies or music, or maybe sports or even the newest and highest technologies – all these “fountains” leave us dry and empty.
God has created us in His image and His likeness with a deep thirst in us for God Himself – a “God-shaped vacuum” – something within us that only He can fill and satisfy! We may toil and labor to purchase things / acquire properties, or maybe we get involved in a lot of fun activities and have lots of friends – in the end, we realize that these things are like “idols” that replace God yet still do not satisfy us.
The fact that “the cisterns” were broken means that apart from God Himself dispensed into us as living water nothing can quench our thirst and make us God’s increase for His expression! We are fully happy and satisfied when we drink of Him – by calling on His name, praying with an open heart to Him, praying over His Word, and all the other vital activities of the divine life in us – in our spirit!
By drinking of Him as the fountain of living waters, we become His expression on the earth: His increase! And it is our full joy and delight to be filled with God as living water and be His expression in a living and corporate way! [sharing from a rich footnote on Jeremiah 2:13]
Lord, save us from forsaking You as the fountain of living waters! Keep drawing us to Yourself as the unique source of life, to drink of You and be satisfied! Lord, make us Your expression in life today!
