Jesus taught about the living water the Holy Spirit would bring even before His death: “On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood up and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” (John 7:37-39) As we celebrate Pentecost today, the fulfilment of that promise, we reflected on the fact that we need to be thirsty, to come to Jesus and to drink. Only then can we live life out of the overflow of God’s living water.
Spiritual Thirst
Ps 63:1 and Ps 42:1-2 both reflect the fact that spiritual thirst is the first step to receiving the Holy Spirit. If we are content with life lived in our own strength, we will never live life out of the overflow of God’s living water (Ps 36:8-9). We need to hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt 5:7) and to draw from the wells of salvation with joy. (Is 12:3) Jeremiah warned against the dangers of forsaking the springs of living water and making our own cisterns (Jer 2:13); we need to be desperate for God and to thirst for His Spirit if we are to move from self-dependence to God-dependence.
Believing
As we come to God to drink, we need to exercise faith. Jesus said, ‘Anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.’ (Jn 14:12) ‘Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ (Jn 7:38) Faith is the key ingredient to receiving from God: ‘without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.’ (Heb 11:6) We need to let go of faith in ourselves and our reliance on ourselves and trust in God. ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.’ (Prov 3:5)
This sounds (and is) simple, but we tend to find it very complicated. We feel we are not worthy to receive the Holy Spirit. We are not: God gives His Spirit as a gift, not a wage for good service. We are unsure if God really wants to bless us. Jesus taught us, however, of God’s desire to give and to bless. (Luke 11:9-13) We need to be convinced of God’s desire to give and believe that in Christ, every promise God has made is ‘yes’! (2 Cor 1:20)
Come and drink
As we thirst for God and believe His word, all we then have to do is to come and drink. The first disciples had to wait for the Holy Spirit to come. They had to wait for Jesus to die on the cross to deal with our sins. They had to wait for Him to rise again from the dead as proof that His sacrifice for sins was acceptable. They had to wait for His ascension, for Jesus to be glorified, so that the Spirit could be poured out. Those things have now happened and so we benefit from the Day of Pentecost, for we too can now come and drink from those living waters which turned the world upside down in the 1st century and can do so today as we believe, come and drink.