It was mid-January and the thermometer in my apartment read 57 degrees. The furnace was on the fritz and I spent a couple of very unpleasant days shivering in the cold.
My physical condition then reflected the spiritual condition of far too many people today. Our interest in and/or commitment to the God of the Bible is absent. We are spiritually cold.
At least two fatal flaws cause spiritual frigidity. “For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).
God as the source of more than literal water and physical life is in view as Jesus reveals, “Everyone who drinks of this water (from a well) will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst… it shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14) He went on to add, “…he who believes in Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35b) indicating that to believe in Him is to “drink the water” and possess eternal life.
To forsake God is to reject His Son and eternal life available only to those who personally trust in Him (John 3:16; 14:6). “He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” (1 John 5:12)
Rejecting God is an evil compounded by replacing Him—“digging our own cisterns” (rock basins that collect water). Whoever or whatever we look to other than God to give us ultimate meaning and satisfaction in life provides temporary value at best. Our career, children, comfort, cash, command of others, or catching their attention as replacements for God are “broken cisterns that hold no water.” These empty pursuits offer fleeting fulfillment and certain judgment.
Many are dangerously close to entering a state of spiritual hypothermia. May those caught in the error and emptiness of godless pursuits “turn up the heat” before it’s too late.
God mercifully invites all who’ve rejected and replaced God to ‘turn up the heat’ by drinking from the fountain of living water through personal repentance and faith in Christ, thereby experiencing eternal life and escaping God’s wrath (Isaiah 55:1-6; John 7:37).
Believers in Christ whose interests and involvement in other things rivals the place of God in their lives can thaw a chilling faith by repenting and realigning priorities.
“Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near.” (Isaiah 55:6)