Broken Cisterns

This is what the Lord says:

“What fault did your ancestors find in me,
    that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols
    and became worthless themselves.

Jeremiah 2:5

Despite my best intentions to avoid distraction and not battle the atheists on Facebook, I am drawn to them over and over again. It feels like my ministry. I post my blog with some sort of teaser on their page, and the atheists are usually all over it in seconds. Huge long discussions often ensue, and I can sometimes spend hours responding. 

I have no idea if anyone is ever swayed by my words, but I know God's word never returns void. So I never give up until another believer takes the baton. I usually bow out at that point, and resume the necessities of life like cooking, cleaning, and sleeping.

Strangely, I feel a great burden for those people. I don't know them, but I believe with all my heart that they are lost without Jesus. So, I do my best to persuade them that faith in Jesus is far preferable to the worthless idols so many of us traipse after. 

The world is full of alluring false idols -- fame, fortune, sexual freedom without constraint, big homes, fancy cars, expensive toys, the latest technology....The list is endless. However, think how often the "rich and famous" admit that their opulent life-style never brought all the expected joy and peace. In fact, it is often the opposite.

Living without restraint with the freedom to wander far from God often results in hollow, empty despair. In the book of Jeremiah, God tells us:

 My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
    the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
    broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

When we forsake God, no matter how desperately we try to fill ourselves with all the world has to offer, it will drain away. Without God, we are broken cisterns that cannot hold water. God longs to be the living water. Jesus says:

But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him 

will never be thirsty again. 

The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water 

welling up to eternal life. 

John 4:14 

I pray that all the atheists come to faith. I pray that they finally grow weary of the broken cisterns, the emptiness of chasing false Gods and false comforts. God may not have created Facebook, but like anything, He can use it for His glory.

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John 7:38 

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”

John 4:13-15 

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Revelation 21:6 

And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.

Isaiah 44:3 

For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.

John 7:37 

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.