God's Watering Place Is Holy Living

God’s watering place is holy living

ps 23:2 “He leads me”

As sheep need water so do we as humans? The Good Shepherd knows where the best drinking water is. He is the one that goes before us to make sure that we are provided with good drinking water. If sheep does not get water it will die for it is composed of 70% water. With out water it will lose its vitality, strength and vigor. With no water, dehydration will set in and this will cause serious damage to the welfare of the sheep. We have a built in gauge that tells us we are thirsty and in need of water.

So the soul of each and every person has a need of the water of the Spirit of God. When sheep are, thirsty they become restless and if they are not lead to clean pure water will drink from they will seek out polluted waters that can cause them to pick up diseases and germs that will lead to be unhealthy.

A thirsty soul can only have their thirst quenched by the Good Shepherd’s spiritual water. Let us look at MT 5:6 Blessed are they, which do hunger, and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. JN 7:37-3 On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, "If you are thirsty, come to me! If you believe in me, come and drink! For the Scriptures declare that rivers of living water will flow out from within." (When he said "living water," he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.)

Even though we have access to the Holy Spirit and a life of holiness there are many who are trying to satisfy in drinking from the things of this world. Let me ask you a personal question, “How much time have you spent in prayer and bible reading in comparison to how much time you spent on watching TV, on the internet, reading newspapers and books, working at your job and listening to the radio?

As you read and study about the religions of this world, you will find man trying to work to please or find God in a way that is not given in the Bible. We even read that some of God’s people are seeking in the wrong places. JERE 2:13 “For my people have done two evil things: They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all!”

I want to ask the question that all of us have to answer, “How do you view living a holy life? Do you think of it as a beautiful and exciting life or one that is to hard to live with to many rules to live up to? God tells us more than once that we are to be holy. The Bible also says He is able to make us holy. There are churches today that are full of Christian nurseries because the people have become stuck in what they believe to be eternal security and are not growing in their likeness to Christ. Can one that is saved from sin remain the same in their daily living? Would you like to have six-year-old child that decided that crawling was where he wanted to stay and so never took up walking. This child wants us to carry them around because they decided to stay in a crawling stage. Would like to be carrying around a 50# child? When we are saved, we are to grow in holiness like learning to walk. I want us to not think of holiness as a certain church doctrine but as the foundation to a wholeness of human life. It is God’s call on our life. I want us to consider five aspects to holy living.

I. Holiness is first all about Jesus. We can all agree that Jesus was holy. Some have given us to believe that if we take Jesus into our lives we will gain self worth, good health, prosperity and become emotionally stable. I know and have heard of people who have given their lives to Christ yet lived in sickly bodies, had little wealth, had anxiety and lacked feeling good about their self worth. Look at the life of Jesus. He was born in a poor family, never owned many of the things that we think are necessities in life, was ridiculed, suffered much and even his own family did not believe in Him. He lived a holy life. It is of interest that Jesus lived holy but never said, “Now if you just want to live a holy life here is step 1, 2, 3. He lived a holy life that was to be watched and learned. I do not have time to argue about theology on doctrinal themes with people because much of it can be interpreted in the way we would like. What we need to know about a holy life is found in Jesus.