Lunch: Invitation to the Thirsty

by Hillary Mortensen, adapted from footnotes of the Life Application Study Bible

In my earlier post More Than Enough, I wrote about God satisfying our every need. Food, while great (and we remember that while fasting!), costs money and lasts for only a short time. Fortunately, God offers us free nourishment that feeds our souls. Read Isaiah 55:1-6, looking for the instruction on how to get it:

¹ "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.

² Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.

³ Give ear and come to me;
hear me, that your soul may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful love promised to David.

⁴ See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander of the peoples.

⁵ Surely you will summon nations you know not,
and nations that do not know you will hasten to you,
because of the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel,
for he has endowed you with splendor."

⁶ Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.

We come (verse 1), listen (verse 2), seek and call on God (verse 6). While God's gift of salvation is freely offered to us, we must receive it for it to nourish our souls. Jesus speaks of Himself as the Bread of Life in the Gospel of John, Chapter 6:

⁴⁷I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. ⁴⁸I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. ⁵⁰But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. ⁵¹I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

Referring to water in a well, Jesus also said this in John 4:13-14:

Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

So, while bread and water may meet our physical needs, Jesus meets our spiritual needs. Believe in Jesus for everlasting life, trusting that it is the Father's will that "...everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and that [Jesus] will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:40)

Say a prayer of thanks that Jesus is more than enough to meet your needs and Adam's needs eternally, and, if you haven't already accepted His gift of salvation for yourself, please consider doing so. (Read my earlier post Costly Grace for more information on accepting God's gift of grace.)

Pray also that you, Adam, and Adam's family would turn to Jesus to satisfy every hunger and every thirst.