|
While I was taking a walk in the park, I noticed a pair of swans in the sea just over the fence. They were drinking water from a stream which flowed down from the hills above the town.
The water was fresh and clean. The swans had been swimming around in the sea which is salt water and contaminated with all sorts of rubbish of plastic containers etc. The swans had the sense to leave the filth of the sea and get close to the fresh water where they could get a good supply of fresh water to drink.
I began to think of the sea, with all its rubbish and pollution, and likened it to the world of sin in which we live. It`s so easy to become contaminated with the filth of sin in our world. We are surrounded by it. The Internet, TV., magazines etc. all have the potential to contaminate us if we are not careful.
We don`t need to get contaminated as the swans prove to us because they are in the contaminated sea and yet stay pure white.
I thirsted in the barren land of sin and shame,
And nothing satisfying there I found;
But to the blessed cross of Christ one day I came,
Where springs of living water did abound.
Chorus
Drinking at the streams of living water,
Happy now am I, my soul they satisfy;
Drinking at the streams of living water,
O wonderful and bountiful supply. (Springs of Living Water by John W. Peterson)
"Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." (2 Corinthians 7:1 KJV)
The message I was getting, as I watched the swans reach further and further up the stream where there was no mix of fresh and salty contaminated water at the place where they were drinking, was that as Christians we should not live our lives too near the sinful practises of the world. We should get as close to the source of the living stream which is Christ. Drink from Him, the fountain which is pure and clean. We can have all our sins washed away in the stream and also drink from it.
Oh Christ, He is the fountain,
The deep sweet well of love!
The streams on earth I`ve tasted,
More deep I’ll drink above.
There to an ocean fullness
His mercy doth expand,
And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel`s land! (Oh Christ, He is the fountain by Anne Ross Cundell Cousin)
Donnie Black
|
