the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Truths to Live By - One Day at a Time
“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”
It is a bad bargain to exchange a fountain for cisterns, and especially for broken cisterns. A fountain is a spring of cool, pure, refreshing water, gushing forth from the earth. A cistern is an artificial reservoir for storing water. The water in it may become stagnant and foul. When the cistern is broken, the water leaks out and pollution seeps in.
The Lord is a Fountain of living waters. His people can find lasting satisfaction in Him. The world is a cistern, and a broken cistern at that. It offers the hope of pleasure and happiness, but those who seek satisfaction in it are inevitably disappointed.
Mary was brought up in a Christian home where the Word of God was read and memorized. But she rebelled against her parents’ lifestyle and left home, determined to live it up. Dancing became the passion of her life. Trying to repress all memories of her Christian background, she lived from one dance to the next.
One night while gliding across the dance floor with her partner, she was arrested by a verse of Scripture which she had learned as a girl: “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.” In the middle of the dance, she was convicted of her sin. Realizing the emptiness of her life, she turned to the Lord and was converted. She excused herself from continuing the dance, left the hall and never returned.
From that moment she could identify with the poet who wrote: “I tried the broken cisterns, Lord,/ But ah! the waters failed!/ E’en as I stooped to drink they’d fled,/ And mocked me as I wailed./ Now none but Christ can satisfy,/ None other name for me;/ There’s love, and life, and lasting joy,/ Lord Jesus, found in Thee.”
Mary experienced the truth of the Savior’s words, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life”.
'Truths to Live By - One Day at a Time' Copyright 2007 © William MacDonald. 'Truths to Live By - One Day at a Time' articles may be reproduced in whole under the following provisions: 1) You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. You may not use the material for commercial purposes. If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.
