Water of Life

Another year has passed and a new year has begun. And for every year there is a Scripture, the so-called motto for the year. Who still remembers the motto for 2017? I myself wasn’t quite sure any more and had to look it up.

God said: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26

God wants to change our hearts and our spirits. There where a stony heart and a human spirit is, He wants to put His spirit and His heart within us, so that we become more like Him in the manner in which He created us: In His likeness. He wants to transform us, changing us into the image that He has of us.

This motto for the year 2018 is the second part of today’s scripture. I find it is well suited to the motto of last year. “It is done” says God, we are filled with His spirit and with His heart. He, Who is our source and our goal in life has, in Christ, made us people after His own will again.

For us this means that we should endeavour to remain in God, like the fruit on the branch, which nourishes itself through the root, with all that it needs to stay alive. God knows that we cannot nourish ourselves from nothing, and thus He wants to provide for our needs.

In and through Jesus we obtain, as is stated elsewhere, the streams of living water. Jesus is the Source of life and from this we can receive the water necessary for power and life.

Without Jesus we revert back to our old lives, separated from God. Only when we, as the fruit on a tree, cling to Him, are we able to find the meaning and the goal for our lives.

So my wish for you in 2018 is that you don’t lose this connection and always live in the power and blessing of the Lord!

Rainer Gigerich