Though we Often Forsake God, we can Repent and Return to Drink Him as Living Waters

Though we often forsake God and run after other things to find satisfaction, we can repent and return to drink Him as living waters in our daily life.

God is faithful to deal with our idols and bring us back to the enjoyment of Christ that we may drink of Him; though we are not faithful and fail God, we should not be disappointed but rather, repent and come back to Him to drink Him as the living water. Amen!

God’s desire in His economy is to bountifully supply us with Himself as the spiritual food and spiritual drink for us to be filled with Him and express Him.

He has become the fountain of living waters for us to drink and partake of so that we may fulfill His heart’s desire.

We were created in the image of God and according to His likeness, and we are given to drink of Him as the living water.

Hallelujah, there is a fountain of living water flowing today, and we can come to the Lord and drink!

However, instead of drinking God as living water, we many times drink of something else.

There are so many things around us that distract us, and we focus on other things apart from Christ.

So the Lord is faithful. He is faithful to expose the idols, the things and matters that replace Christ.

He is faithful in His economy, for He has called us into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ.

We have been called into the enjoyment and participation in Christ, and God is faithful to keep us here.

Many things temporarily distract us and grab our attention, but the Lord keeps shining on us.

He exposes the idols. He shows us His excellence and His beauty.

And we willingly choose Him, come back to Him, repent before Him, and drink Him as the fountain of living waters.

We are not coerced to drink of the living water; we choose to drink.

On His side, the Lord has done everything and He is still doing everything.

He went through a process to become the fountain of living waters springing up and flowing out to us in Christ as the Spirit to reach us wherever we are.

Then, at the time of our regeneration, He gave us to drink, and when we drank the living water, this water became in us a fountain springing up into eternal life (John 4:13-14).

Since the time we drank of the Lord, our life changed, and we could not be satisfied with anything that this world has to offer.

We simply had to come to Him and drink of Him more and more.

Our heart, however, is deceitful and we do not know it; many times our heart sticks to things, having things, matters, and persons as its idols.

We have idols in our heart.

So the Lord is faithful to His word to shine on us, lovingly call us back to Himself, and expose the idols in our heart. How faithful is our God!

God is Faithful, but Many times we’re Unfaithful but Evil, Forsaking Him as the Fountain of Living Waters

Our God is faithful – He called us into the fellowship of His Son and has given us to drink of Him as the fountain of living waters (Lam. 3:22-25).

However, we are many times unfaithful to the Lord.

Just like the people of Israel in the Old Testament, we many times forsake the Lord.

In Jer. 2:13 the Lord exposed the evil condition of the people of Israel; their evil was not that they did this or that evil thing before God but rather that they forsook God as the fountain of living waters.

When we forsake the Lord as the fountain of living waters, we are unfaithful to Him, and we commit two evils: we forsake God and we seek to hew out cisterns for us to drink from, which cisterns are broken and hold no water.

First, we as God’s people many times forsake God as the fountain, the source, for our enjoyment.

Second, we turn to sources other than God to drink from them, but they cannot satisfy us or fill us to make us the enlargement of God as His fullness for His expression. In God’s eyes, this is evil.

When we forsake the Lord and go after other things, persons, and matters, to find our satisfaction, this is evil.

Many of these things we go after may not be considered evil by us, for we may focus on our education or on entertainment, or we may focus a lot on things related to our human living, even Bible study or Christian work.

It is possible that we, by being involved in a Christian work, would forsake the Lord as the fountain of living waters.

When we focus on the work more than on the Lord, that work becomes a cistern, a broken cistern, which holds no water.

This is our condition many times; we seek other things that we feel will give us satisfaction.

The fact that the people of Israel hewed out cisterns portrays their toil in their human labor to make something (idols) to replace God.

The fact that the cisterns were broken and could hold no water indicates that, apart from God dispensed into us as living water for our enjoyment, nothing can quench our thirst and make us God’s increase for His expression.

We see a good example of this in John 4, where the Lord was speaking with the Samaritan woman.

Whoever drinks of this water that the world has to offer will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that the Lord gives us will never thirst again (vv. 13-14).

We as believers in Christ drink of the living water, but many times we still feel thirsty.

The Lord said that we will never thirst again, but we still feel thirsty.

The reason we feel thirsty is because we have replaced God as the fountain of living waters with something else.

It is so easy to replace the Lord in our heart and allow Him to be replaced with something; this is evil in the Lord’s sight.

The evil condition of the wicked is that they do not come to the Lord to eat, drink and enjoy the Lord (Isa. 57:20; cf. 55:1-2, 6-7). Oh, Lord!

When we forsake God as the fountain of living waters, we may do many things, but we do not come to the Lord to take Him, receive Him, taste Him, and enjoy Him – in God’s eyes, nothing is more evil than this!

May we allow the Lord to shine on our evil condition and may we repent and return to drink of Him as the living water.

We should not think that the wicked are those in the world, who don’t drink of God; we ourselves may be wicked if we forsake God as the fountain of living waters.

In the situation of Israel, because they drank of other things and forsook God, God used the Babylonians to deal with the idols and also destroy Jerusalem and even the temple, which had become an idol to them.

In our situation, many times God shows His faithfulness toward us by shining on our idols and exposing the things which replace Him as the fountain of living waters.

Furthermore, in His faithfulness, God deals with our idols to bring us back to drink of Him.

He simply wants us to repent and return to drink Him, enjoy Him, and absorb and assimilate Him so that we may be part of His increase on the earth for His corporate expression.

Thank the Lord for His faithfulness in dealing with our idols and bringing us back to Himself to enjoy Him and drink of Him!

Lord Jesus, forgive us for forsaking You as the fountain of living waters and for seeking to find satisfaction in things other than You. We return to You, Lord, as the unique fountain of living waters. We forsake any other cisterns that we may hew out for ourselves, and we come back to You as the fountain of life. Oh Lord, save us from being wicked in Your sight. Save us from being evil in not coming to You to enjoy You. Save us from doing many things for the Lord without contacting the Lord. Keep us coming to You in all things to fellowship with You and drink of You. Amen, Lord, it is Your lovingkindness that we are not consumed, for Your compassions do not fail – they are new every morning! Great is Your faithfulness! You are our portion, we hope in You, and we come to drink of You. Oh Lord Jesus, we want to draw water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation by calling on the name of the Lord! Oh, Lord Jesus!

Though we often Forsake God, we can Repent and Return to Drink Him as Living Waters

If we look at the history of the children of Israel in their relationship with God, and if we also look at our history in our Christian life, we may see a lot of failures and mistakes.

It seems that all we do is just fail, for especially in the matter of our drinking, we many times drink of something else apart from the Lord.

But according to what the Bible says, no matter how evil and wicked Israel may be and how many failures we have, both Israel and we will be restored.

In Israel’s case, God promised that they would be restored and Christ would be their righteousness, redemption, and life (Jer. 31:33-34).

God will come in to dispense Himself into His elect as the divine life to be their life and life law with its capacity to know God and to live God. Amen!

In our eyes, we are full of failures and mistakes; in God’s eyes, He is constantly dispensing Himself into us.

According to our assessment of our situation, we fail God so much, for even today we have sought to drink of something that is not God.

According to God’s view, He uses our mistakes and failures as opportunities to work Himself into us a little more.

God is faithful, but we’re neither faithful nor chaste, but we go after many other husbands.

And when the Lord shines on us to expose the idols, we repent and come back to the Lord.

As we repent before the Lord and even weep, the Lord is rejoicing, for He is faithful to bring us back to the enjoyment of Christ as living water.

After repenting, we should simply continue drinking the living waters by praising God, thanking Him for everything, and enjoying Him.

God is not interested in anything other than our enjoyment of Christ (see Rom. 8:28-29; Heb. 6:1a; Gen. 37:1 and footnote; 47:7 and footnote in the Recovery Version Bible).

We may think that, because of our failures, we are hopeless; however, with God, there’s no disappointment, for He uses even our failures for Him to work Himself a little more into us.

Therefore, we should not be disappointed but rather, come to the Lord, repent and return to drink God as the living water.

May our mind be renewed so we may see that our failure simply opens the way for Christ to come in to be everything to us, enabling Him to bring us on to maturity.

May we not look at our failure but repent and look to the Lord. We can simply ask for His forgiveness and then move on, contact Him, and drink Him.

The Lord doesn’t look at our failure; He doesn’t “cancel” us because of our failure.

He is not disappointed with us. We may fail God today, but He is not disappointed, for He in His faithfulness has a way of dealing with us.

He has a way to cause us to mature in the divine life and then bring us all the way into the New Jerusalem.

We should simply contact the Lord and look to Him, not look at our failure.

Once we repent, God doesn’t look at our failure anymore; He simply wants us to look away unto Him and be infused with Him as living water.

May we be brought unto maturity by the Lord as we turn to Him again and again after our many failures.

May we open to Him a little more day by day after all our failures and mistakes. God is faithful. He will do in us what He began.

Though we fail Him and forsake Him, He still is faithful.

We are faithless and we fail God, but He is not disappointed.

Many times we may be disappointed with our condition or with the condition of those whom we shepherd, but God is never disappointed.

God is patient, sympathetic, and compassionate, and He takes the time to make us mature.

Every believer in Christ, whether he is strong or weak in the present, will become part of the New Jerusalem, and everyone will be mature.

We see only what is in front of us, our present situation, but God sees what we will be, and He is never disappointed.

Whether we may seek God diligently or only a little, God will have a way to make Christ our righteousness, our redemption, our life, our life law, and our life capacity so that we can be matured.

May we simply respond to Him as He shines on us so that we repent and return to drink of Him as the fountain of living waters.

And may we not be disappointed with our condition or with the condition of the ones we care for; rather, may we look away unto Jesus and drink Him and flow Him out as living waters.

All we need to do is just repent and return to drink the Lord as the fountain of living waters.

Lord Jesus, thank You for never being disappointed with us. Thank You for always being faithful to come to us as the fountain of living waters for us to drink. Amen, Lord Jesus, we love You. Shine on us. Expose our idols and have Your way of dealing with them. We just want to look away from anything else unto You so that we may enjoy You and drink of You. May our failures open the way for Christ to come in and be everything to us. Amen, Lord, have Your way to bring us on to maturity. Save us from being disappointed with our failures and mistakes. Keep us coming to You. May we learn to just repent and return to You to drink of You as the living water. May we learn not to look at our failures but to the Lord, the One who is always hopeful! Hallelujah, we will all become the New Jerusalem, and we will all arrive to maturity! Amen, Lord, we believe into You that, even though we may fail You today, You will go on in us and bring us on to maturity until we become the New Jerusalem! Praise the Lord for His faithfulness!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by Ricky Acosta in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Jeremiah, pp. 29-31 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Enjoyment of Christ and our Growth in Life unto Maturity (2023 Thanksgiving Blending Conference), week 1, entitled, The Enjoyment of the All-inclusive Christ as the Unique Solution to All Problems in the Church.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – What God wants from us, a portion from, Life-Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations, Chapter 40.
  – Don’t Forsake the Fountain of Living Waters, via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – God presenting Himself to the children of Israel as a fountain of living waters, a portion from, Life-Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations, Chapter 12, by Witness Lee.
  – Come and Drink the Living Waters! Via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – The enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ as the unique solution to all problems in the church, an outline via, The Church in New York City.
  – The Triune God, article via, Affirmation and Critique.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – I have come to the Fountain of Life, / A fountain that flows from above; / I have passed from the waters of strife / And come to the Elim of love; / I have drunk of the heavenly well, / In the depths of my being it springs. / No mortal can measure or tell / The gladness the Comforter brings. / Oh, come to the Fountain of Life, / The fountain that never runs dry; / Oh, drink of the boundless supply, / For Christ is the Fountain of Life. (Hymns #523 stanza 1 and chorus)
  – After tasting such a fountain, / Longed my heart for a place of springs; / Caught a vision on a mountain, / In Jerusalem’s a gathering. / Then one day He found me, / He brought me to the church, / Pleasures here abound fore’er / I’ve given up my search. / Hallelujah! / Jesus, Jesus is my life now, / Jesus, Jesus is my life; / I’m fully satisfied now, / Jesus, Jesus is my life. (Hymns #1327 stanza 2)
  – Flow through me, Lord, till waters from Thy fountain / Shall slake the thirst of souls in deserts drear. / Flow through me, Lord, till arid places blossom / With roses fresh and sweet, and wondrous fair. / Flow through me, Lord, set all my heart-strings thrilling, / With Thine own love, so matchless, perfect, free. / Flow through me, Lord, till naught in earth or heaven, / Can satisfy my being, Lord, but Thee. (Hymns #249 stanzas 5-6)