DAILY DEVOTIONAL – July 23, 2019
“Ahhhhh!”
Prayer: Lord Jesus, our hearts thirst only for You. You are the True Living Water that brings everlasting life. By your grace and through faith in You, we humbly ask that you would work in and through us so that we would be refreshment to others and to this parched and barren world. Amen.
Scripture: Psalm 1:1-3
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
3 He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
Devotion – “Ahhhhh!”
When I was flying into Omaha for the first time, one of the first things I noticed when coming into land was the vast amounts of green that blanketed the city. Being from Southern California, green and city are nearly mutually exclusive terms. Metropolitan areas in Los Angeles and Orange County are predominantly forests of concrete and asphalt. If you live in the city, you go to the green areas.
Most of us probably have fond memories of trees. Rope and tire swings hung from a sturdy branch. Picking an orange from a tree in the middle of summer while playing with your friends as a refreshing snack on a hot day. Family picnics under the shade of a tree. Carving your initials into the trunk of a tree. And of course, climbing trees as high as you could go and building tree forts and tree houses.
Trees not only provide great fun and fond memories, but God created trees as a very special part of creation. Trees not only are alive, but are critical for giving life and sustaining life. For example:
- Trees sustain life (treepeople.org)
- Food
- Shelter
- Fungi
- Microhabitats
- Oxygen and carbon dioxide
- Trees can help you find your way if you get lost in the woods. In northern temperate climates, moss will grow on the northern side of the tree trunk, where there is more shade. Also, a tree’s rings can help point you in the right direction too. If you’re in the northern hemisphere, you can see the rings of the tree grow slightly thicker on the southern side since it receives more light. In the southern hemisphere, the opposite is true, with rings being thicker on the north side. (treepeople.org)
- Trees can help heal those who are sick. Research has found that patients who have healthy trees outside their window are not only more positive about recovery but actually showed signs of faster recovery than those who had no trees in their view. (treepeople.org)
- Trees reduce violence. Studies have shown that neighborhoods with plentiful trees have measurably lower crime rates than those neighborhoods that are barren and without trees. (treepeople.org)
As wonderful and essential as trees are to life, they still need something important themselves in order to live and give life. They need water. Without water, trees cannot be the source of joy and life that we all need.
The same can be said for you and for I and for all of humanity. Without water, we die just like a tree. We are just as dependent on water to live as a tree is. Our bodies no doubt need water to survive, but so do our souls. Because of sin, all of us are by nature parched and dry inside…barren and without life. Our bodies may seem very much alive, but the reality of sin has left us dry. In order to survive our souls need True Living water…something far more powerful than the water that can only keep our physical bodies alive and that only temporarily satisfies our thirst. We need eternal water to quench the thirst for eternity that exists in the heart of every person.
When talking with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus pointed to the water she drew from well and said in John 4:13-15, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The True Living water we need for eternal life only comes through Christ, and by faith in His death and resurrection as the Son of God through whom all things were made. Putting our faith and trust in Christ brings not only eternal refreshment to our souls, but by the incredible grace of God in Christ Jesus, we are filled up to overflowing with Living Water so that much like He does with a tree, God can work in and through even us to bring life and joy to the dying world around us.
As it says in Psalm 1 that we read for our devotional text for today, God has so graciously provided His Word, His Law…His Word given to us from the very lips of God Himself in the flesh, in Jesus…and that Word is the Living Water that refreshes us and through which the Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts; faith that wells up into eternal life. When that Word of God is our daily meditation, as Psalm 1 says, we become
“like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.”
Much like a tree, when Christ is our refreshment and source of Living Water, He brings the fruit of His salvation to bear even in our lives, so that through us He may bring life and hope and refreshment to the world as we share that Word of God, and the hope found only in Jesus Christ. John 7:37-38, “If anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”
So drink up my friends, in Christ we have an eternal supply of Living Water…in fact we have an abundance of Living Water that God has provided so that we may be a refreshment to the world as we share the Gospel of Christ with all who would have ears to hear.
God bless you, and remember that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
