Are you thirsty for God?

Are you thirsty for God? Do you have an insatiable desire, a craving, a yearning for Him? When you don’t spend time with Jesus, do you find yourself deficient and lacking? I hope your answer was “yes” to both of those questions.  
 
While we are on the subject of thirsting and we’re leading up to the events of the cross and the resurrection, let me remind you that one of the phrases uttered by Jesus on the cross was, “I thirst.” Studying this a few minutes ago, here’s something I hadn’t noticed before. There were actually two times where Jesus was offered something to drink. The first, He refused. The second, He requested. In Matthew 27:33-35, you find an account where Jesus has just made it to Golgotha, and He was offered wine mixed with gall to drink. “Tradition says that the women of Jerusalem customarily furnished this pain-killing narcotic to prisoners who were crucified.” Jesus refused to drink this, because He wanted to be fully conscious until His death.
 
As the hours of the crucifixion progressed, John 19 says this, “Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty’. A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.” This type of “wine vinegar” was basically equivalent to cheap wine, the drink of ordinary people.  John was paying attention to every detail, and when Jesus uttered these words, He remembered the prophecy of Psalm 69:21, which says, “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.” Psalm 69 was known to be a prophetic psalm, which is why John added the words, “so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.”  Don’t you love connecting the dots of God’s Word?!
 
So Jesus refused the sedative drink, but received the drink of the common man. There’s an entire sermon in that! John 19:30 says, “When He had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’”
 
Perhaps it’s just me, but maybe when Jesus spoke the words, “I thirst,” He was not only physically thirsty in that moment but also spiritually and emotionally thirsty. It’s interesting to note in Matthew 27:45-48 that before He said, “I thirst,” He said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He was feeling alone and isolated, detached from His Father. Thirsting for God’s love and comfort and presence. I’m sure there was truth in the physical side of Jesus being thirsty, but His heart and soul were thirsting, too.
 
So let’s go back to my question again. Are YOU thirsty for God? Do you have longings and desires that only He can satisfy? Are you parched and empty without Him? Then take a drink of His living water today. Ask Him to quench your thirst and allow you to know “His love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:19)
 
“Whoever drinks this 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)