Continuing the theme of detoxification, we need to be careful what we drink.
Jesus offers us living water to drink (John 7:37-38), water that will slake our thirst and satisfy us, water that is pure and refreshing.
Instead of drinking from this water, however, we tend to prefer a host of other drinks:
sugary fizzy drinks
tea or coffee
alcohol
We prefer these drinks because they taste nicer to us or we like the effects they provide (more energy, fewer inhibitions, blotting out painful situations or memories and enabling us to see life through rose-tinted spectacles). We need to understand, however, that any substitute for God’s living water will not ultimately satisfy us or do us good. Too many sugary drinks rot our teeth and cause us to become overweight. Too much caffeine interferes with our body’s natural need for rest. Too much alcohol slows down our reactions and prevents us from thinking clearly.
Just as water is the only drink really with no adverse side effects (and the only fluid which is absolutely essential to life), so God is the only true source of joy and pleasure which will never harm us. Jeremiah said, ‘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.’ (Jer 2:13)
Let’s cut out the fine-tasting but potentially harmful drinks from our lives and learn to slake our thirst in God alone. Let’s leave behind everything which is only a substitute for God and settle only for ‘the real thing.’