There’s an old-world definition of “living water”–it means water that moves. Dead waters are stagnant–you don’t want to drink from them, and sometimes things can’t even live in them.

For instance, the Dead Sea. Now, this place is pretty amazing in a lot of ways. The salt content in so high that nothing can live in the waters. So high that you get salt cubes littering the shore and chunks of it floating in the water like icebergs. We’ve all probably heard the stories about how easy it is to float, and how quickly the water heals cuts or scrapes on your skin.

Why is the Dead Sea so salty? Because the Jordan river flows in, but then it stops. There’s no outlet. The water simply evaporates in the heat. It’s dead, not just because the salinity is so high that nothing can live there, but because the water doesn’t move.

In contrast is the Sea of Galilee, which is fresh water. The same Jordan river flows in, flows out. Plus, it’s fed from underground springs. This is living water. Fresh and clean and teeming with life.

That’s what our faith is supposed to be.

My dad preached on this last weekend, and it really spoke to me. He started with John 7:37-38:

37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” (Emphasis mine. NKJV)

 Somehow, through all the times I’ve read John, I’d never caught that before. Whenever I think of living water, I think of it being Jesus–I remember the woman at the well, and how our Lord promises that He can give a living water that will make us thirst no more. Jesus is the living water.

But then there’s that part in bold above. He comes into the hearts of those believe in Him–and then what?

 Living water–moving water. Fresh water. He comes in . . . and He needs to flow out. We need to be fed with His words, with His truth, with His salvation, yes–but that can’t be the end of it. We can’t just hold it all in and think we’re good. That we’re saved, so that’s all that matters. 

We can’t stagnate. We have to move. Our faith has to move. It has to flow back out to the rest of the dry and thirsty world.


In our Bible study on Wednesday nights, we’ve been reading Romans. In 2:16, Paul is talking about about how the law is written on the hearts of men and that God will judge them, through Jesus, according to “my gospel.” My husband, ever amazing at digging deep into the wording, asked “Why does Paul call it his Gospel here? Isn’t it usually called Christ’s gospel?”


We went back and forth with it for a while, and eventually I said something I thought was kinda simplistic, but which everyone loved: that Paul is owning it. He’s taking the Gospel inside him and then sharing it, so fully unashamed, so fully committed to it that he’s willing to call it his own.


That’s the living water faith we all need to have. The kind that takes it in. That lives through it and by it. And that sends it out again to nourish others.


Father, let your Living Water spring up within us. Let it fill all the parches and empty places in our souls. And let our spirits’ cups then so overflow with you that we have no choice but to spill out your goodness for those around us. Let us be the fresh spring in a bitter world. The life among the dead. Let us be a fountain of your glory.