TWO BIG SINS

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“My people have committed two sins:

“They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”

Jeremiah 2:13

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

As we saw in yesterday’s devotion, the Lord wasn’t very happy with the Israelites because they had chosen to forsake Him and worship other gods and idols, a direct disobedience to one of His primary commandments. It constituted the ultimate bad idea by the people of God and unfortunately, people today are choosing to repeat the mistakes of the past.

As we turn to today’s verse from Jeremiah, Chapter 2, we find the Lord calling out the people of Israel for committing two specific sinful acts. Look again at His words here:

“My people have committed two sins:

“They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.”  Jeremiah 2:13

What were the two big sins?

First, God’s people had forsaken Him and the living water He offered.

Anyone who commits themselves to the Lord finds themselves a new creation, what was in the past gone and everything in life fresh and vibrant (2 Corinthians 5:17). This is because they are completely refreshed and renewed by the living water drunk from His word and Spirit. Nothing else can fulfill us outside of this and Jesus promised us that those who thirst for His righteousness will always find themselves filled, quenched by a life-providing, eternally life-sustaining water like no other (Matthew 5:6).

It was this water that we find Jesus talking about with a woman He met at Jacob’s well. Here’s the scriptural account of that meeting:

He came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as He was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give Me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to Him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”  John 4:5-15

Note here that the woman did not have access to the kind of living water Jesus offered. She could only receive it through Him and by the end of their talk, she craved for His water, seeing that it had a much greater power than anything the well could offer.

If only the people of Israel had grasped a hold of the same concept. Instead, they chose to forsake God and commit the second big sin.

For as we see in verse 13 of Jeremiah 2, the people of the Lord chose to make their own cisterns, vessels used to hold water. Snubbing the living water God offered, the Israelites decided to try and store water up for themselves, water symbolic of their own desires and self reliance. Their efforts were wasted because as God so aptly states, any cistern constructed by man to hold water apart from the living water He offered would not function. No worldly water would be able to be contained within a man-made vessel because it was broken. Nothing holds together when it is done separate from God, the One who holds all things together.

Friends, the word of God is providing clear guidance to us today. We are not to forsake the living water the Lord offers but rather embrace it, drink of it, and find ourselves rejuvenated and restored, now and forever more.

Jesus said that whoever thirsts for righteousness will be filled.

Are you seeking and receiving His living water today or are you committing the two big sins and repeating the mistakes of the Old Testament Israelites?

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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