Dear members of CPC,

Happy late August! It seems like the summer just started, yet here we are awaiting fall’s arrival right around the corner. As the cool weather brings with it new opportunities, new activities, and exciting schedules for our children and grandchildren, I wonder how many of us can easily feel run down and drained from the general busyness of life. Often, we may feel like we’re entering a new season running on fumes when, in contrast, we long for a renewed freshness to start a new season. What we need is the rest that is found in the gospel. We need the rest that Christ offers.

Consider with me the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. We learn in vv. 16-18 that this woman’s relational life was marked by an unsuccessful pursuit of lasting joy: This woman has had five husbands, and Jesus knows that the man she is currently with is not even her husband!  Jesus, pressing into her situation, points out what the pattern of her life had been up to that point: one of longing and searching for fulfillment.

Dear friends, how often do we wind up in a similar place? We know the source of joy we have in Christ, yet we can so quickly run to other things for fulfillment and not to Jesus. Or sometimes, we simply neglect the means of grace that help us love Christ more. And because we’re not filling our minds and hearts with things of Christ, our minds are instead filled with worldly thoughts and passions…

Among the many notable elements of this story, what’s particularly interesting is how Jesus first interacts with the woman:

Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well… A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.  (John 4:6-8)

Notice that Jesus engages her by asking for a drink. Jesus takes the initiative in the encounter and approaches her first in the conversation. Recognizing her need, Jesus both initiates and sustains the entire encounter. And in the midst of this woman’s need, Jesus offers Himself up as the “fount of living water,” the only source of true joy and satisfaction.

And loved ones, so it is with us – Jesus not only initiates the process of heart change but is himself the lasting power for heart change. Oh, how we need to remember the joy that’s found in Christ! When we pour ourselves out into everything that demands our attention and energy, our fallen human tendency is to push out prayer, Bible reading, and other means of grace to make time for the ever-growing list of demands… when in fact those means of grace are the very things that will fill us back up – in order to pour out, we must first be poured into. We require time with the Lord in His Word and in prayer. And this is one of the great beauties of the means of grace, that we can be constantly renewed by the Fount of Living Water Himself! As Christ engaged with the woman from Samaria and left her heart transformed by His grace, so too does that very same Christ engage all of us, offering himself to us as living water to renew us more and more in his image.

So as we near the end of the summer, whether you’re at the end of your tether, feeling exhausted, longing for some consistency, feeling numb to things of the Lord, or overflowing with the joy that is found in Christ alone – remember the joys of belonging to your Savior. Jesus has purchased you by His blood to make you His own. The very Jesus who bled on the cross to redeem broken sinners like you and me, is the same Jesus who says in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” We have a Savior who can carry all our burdens and carry us through whatever trials we’re enduring and offers instead his light and easy yoke.

Trust in Jesus. Find your rest in Jesus. Remember how He cares for you and be overwhelmed by His renewing grace. And may we find our rest in the Fount of Living Water, who offers a thirst-quenching drink to weary and tired souls.

Blessings in Christ,

Trey