Well, I’ll say it….ITS HOT! I don’t just mean that it’s a little warm outside, I mean it’s HOT. Like cook an egg on a sidewalk, melt your bike tires, raise your electricity bill, turn your pool into a hot tub, fry your lawn, cook your brain, order a truckload of antiperspirant HOT!

Perhaps I went off on a little tangent there, maybe the heat just got to me. But I figured I should just address the perspiring elephant in the room. This heat is getting to all of us and we are in desperate need of relief.

Now, I’m not one to say that we need to just think cooler thoughts and things will just magically get better. I think it’s even too hot for cool thinking. But the question becomes how do we quench and refresh ourselves during this oppressive heat. The answer is, and always has been, water.

Just think about how refreshing that cool glass of ice water is after working out in the heat. Or how reviving it is to jump from the heat of the day into a cool swimming pool. Doing those things remind us of how simple and yet essential water is to our lives.  We literally cannot live without it. And yet how often do we take its simplicity and presence for granted.

Jesus once said to a crowd, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”  Rivers of living water, now that sounds refreshing!

I find that my faith sometimes becomes dry and parched, simply because I have forgotten who it is who quenches my faith.  Christians today are running into the danger of sitting in church, listening to our worship music, and reading our devotionals without spending any time with Jesus.  We simply are going through the motions, wandering in the desert, remaining spiritually dehydrated.

When we dive into the Word of God, when we swim in the pool of grace, when we drink the living water of worship, let’s truly embrace who it is we are with, Christ Jesus!  Our faith is nothing without Christ. If we go through the motions of being good churchgoing folk, but do nothing to truly fill ourselves with the Holy Spirit.  Well, then we are just a lost person wandering in the desert.

It’s too hot to be in the desert my friends, let’s jump into the cool oasis of authentic relationship with Christ our Lord.

Don’t Stay Thirsty, My Friends!  Now, where did I put that sunblock?

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Pastor Mike McVey
Minister – First United Methodist Church, Fairfield TX
ACS Chaplain – United States Coast Guard, Station Galveston TX
Chaplain – Texas Game Warden Service
Cell:  919-935-2513
Email:  pastormike@fumcfairfield.org