Are You Thirsty For God?</font></span>

Are You Thirsty for God?

By Innocent Mwangi. Nairobi. June 30 2010.

Last evening as I drove home, the Holy Spirit took me over and started ministering to me. He took me to a destination that has today become the centerpiece of the Christian Faith: Calvary, at the feet of Jesus.

As I looked up to the 'dying' Savior, I heard Him say: "I am thirsty" (John 19:28). For a moment there, I pondered over what Jesus meant when he said He was thirsty. Was He talking from the perspective of His humanity as so many preachers before me have surmised? Or was he actually talking of a different kind of thirst that I have no clue about?

As if on cue, the Holy Spirit nudged me and chided: "Jesus thirsty? Do you honestly believe that Jesus was actually thirsty for a drink?" As I pondered over these questions, my eyes suddenly opened up. Alas, that man hanging on that ragged cross, juxtaposed between two criminals, was not just another man. In fact, the Holy Spirit reminded me, He was NOT a man! He was the Son of God; an integral part of the Triune God! In a word, the man I was gazing at was God Himself!

Remember Him who created the heaven and the earth? And everything that is in it? Including the waters that fill three-quarters of the earth? The entire creation existed in Him, and without Him nothing ever was. Remember Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well when He said; "whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (John 4:14).

As the Holy Spirit caused my mind to race through all these scenes, He finally looked into my eyes and posed: "If Jesus really was thirsty as a man gets thirsty, don't you think He had the means to quench His own thirst? And do you really think that the 'source of the living water' was referring to the thirst humans know?'" As I stood there, still dazed, the Holy Spirit went on: "Jesus, as a member of the Godhead, will and has always been God. Even though he clothed himself with human skin and human garments, He was never really human. He is, and He has always been, God! That's why Joseph could not sire Him. In fact, even as Mary was overshadowed by God's presence, the seed that came into her womb was as potent as Jesus is today! It was God's DNA, and not Joseph's or Mary's that Jesus carried. Even as he was born, that little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes was not just a baby; it was the Messiah (and the three wise men knew this all too well when they came bearing gifts)."

Still perplexed, my eyes looked over at the now 'lifeless' Jesus hanging on the cross, and on to His bleeding hands and feet. I looked around and I saw women weeping as the children stared in wonderment at a man who had just a while ago admonished His disciples to allow the children to come to Him (Matthew 19: 14). As my eyes lingered on His now closed eyes, the Holy Spirt nudged me again. It was as though He wanted me to really understand who Jesus was. "You know", He went on; "there has been a great deception among mankind about the person of Jesus. You have concentrated on the Passion of Christ at the expense of the Person of Christ. Jesus was God from the beginning. I know this because we existed together, and we still do, in the Godhead. At 12 years when His parents went searching for Him in the Synagogue, the elders and the priest were awed by the wisdom of this 12-year-old lad. But do you honestly think it was a 12-year-old kid speaking? No! This was God Himself in His full essence. I have heard people say that their boss, referring to Jesus, is a carpenter's son! How wrong they are! Jesus is the Son of God. He is not 'a' Son, but 'the' Son of God; the one and only begotten Son (one of the three members of the Godhead)"!

"I see it now!" I exclaimed loudly as I drove home. The Holy Spirit looked at me and winked. He leaned over to me and whispered into my ear: "who do you think performed all those miracles; raised the dead, healed the sick, multiplied bread and fish, and forgave sins? Was it Jesus the man or Jesus the Son of God?" As I started to answer, He went on: "remember Him at that wedding in Galilee? Turning water into wine? (John 2:1-10)."

As I pondered over all these things, the Holy Spirit smiled and asked me: "why did Jesus say "I thirst" while on the cross"? At this point I was convinced that Jesus was not thirsty of a drink of water; He was not looking to quench His thirst the way humans do. The Holy Spirit once more leaned over to my ear and whispered: "I will give you a hint; go over to Psalms 42: 1 and you will find the answer". With this, I came back to my senses with Psalms 42:1 ringing in my head:

1As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for you, O God.

2My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can I go and meet with God?

3My tears have been my food

day and night,

while men say to me all day long,

"Where is your God?"

As I pondered over these scriptures, I finally understood the thirst that Jesus was referring to; it was not a thirst for water or vinegar as those present interpreted it (John 19: 29); it was a longing to be reunited with His Father again! His next words, which are recorded in Matthew 27 gives us an idea of what kind of thirst that Jesus was referring to:

45From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. 46About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, lama sabachthani?"Eloi,^c lama sabachthani?";which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"^d

At this point, heaving under the weighty burden of our sins, which He now bore upon Himself, the other members of the Godhead departed Him momentarily. In this darkest hour of His mission to redeem mankind, only Jesus was left on the cross, and the weight of our sins on His back was almost unbearable. The Holy Spirit and God the Father could not stand the sight of the sins that Jesus now bore. For this one moment, in His entire eternal life, Jesus was without the fellowship of the Godhead.

It is no wonder that Jesus had just a while ago exclaimed that He was 'thirsty'. He was longing for fellowship and communion with His Father. This longing was so intense that it felt like a craving or thirst for water. Just like a deer pants after the water brooks, so did His soul long to be reunited with the Godhead! He was desperate for fellowship with His Father again; but first He had to crucify our sins on the cross; and to do so He had to likewise crucify Himself (to momentarily deny Himself of His rightful position with the Triune God). And for that momentary disconnection, Jesus was so thirsty for God that it was almost unbearable; to the point of asking His Father a rhetorical question: why have you forsaken me? He knew all too well that His Father had not forsaken Him; but the hunger and thirst for God that He felt was so wrenching that it felt like He was all alone on that old rugged cross.

Are you desperate for God my brother; my sister? Do you hunger and thirst for fellowship with God? Now you no longer need to carry your burdens; Jesus did it all for you. As He finally said "it is finished", I can almost see a sigh of relief on His face, rejoicing in the knowledge that He has provided a recompense for your sins. He carried your sins to the cross so that you do not live under the condemnation of it. All you need is to surrender to Him; and to the cross He will take your sins; and make you right with God again!

Now He sits at the right hand side of God; revered in heaven for having done what no other earthly or heavenly being could do: by redeeming us from our sins! This same Jesus, who clothed himself with frail humanity, but never took on the human nature, stands at the door of your heart. And all He wants is that you accept the salvation, which almost cost Him alienation from His Father!

One more thing! Because he overcame, we have surely overcome the enemy. By taking our sins to the cross, He provided a back-pass for us to enter into His Father's courts. In other words, Jesus is our ticket to heaven; to eternal life! Only He died for us; and only He can usher us into His Father's courts. No wonder he said "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Through Him, we now have ACCESS to His Father. And through this access, we can do what He did, and even greater things than He did.

Amen to that!