Know Jesus and never thirst again

John 6:35 (ESV)

35 Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

To believe in Christ is to come to Christ. For it is not just knowledge of Christ that saves, but a firm belief that eternal life through Christ can be found.

The town of East Porterville may be the hardest-hit place in California's punishing drought. Of its 7,300 people, almost 1,000 have no running water. Groundwater levels have plunged by 60 feet or more in some spots, and tens of thousands of wells are in danger. But few knew that until 72-year-old Donna Johnson started driving around town and asking neighbors, "Hi. Do you have water?" Again and again, the answer was no.

When Johnson's well ran dry in June, she and her husband had no idea they were part of something bigger. "I guess I was just oblivious to how bad it had gotten," she said. But that changed when she started stopping to listen. At the local gas station, for instance, she tuned into conversations and kept hearing, "So-and-so's well ran dry."

In July, Johnson decided to put together a list of people out of water in East Porterville. The local paper ran an article that gave her phone number and address and said she was collecting bottled water for drought victims. The next day there were pallets of plastic bottles under her tarp carport. Johnson recruited a neighbor to make the deliveries. The calls from people needing water came as quickly as the donated bottles.

Families would call at midnight and say "We're completely out of water" and she'd go and take some. When she drove up to one local driveway she asked her typical question: "Hi, do you have water?" "A little," a woman named Veronica said. "But if two people take a shower, it's done." Eight people live in the small, water-deprived home. After the Johnson dropped off the water they told her, "Thank you for the water. We didn't know where to go. We're grateful." [Adapted from Diana Marcum, "'Hi, do you have water?' In a Central Calif. town, answer is often no." LA Times (9-18-14)]

There are those who thirst for a happy eternal life spent with God in heaven. Many of us walk around each day not realizing there are those in our community who thirst for eternal salvation. We have come to think everyone should know the source, but as seen above some people didn’t know where to get their thirst satisfied for something as basic as water. Take time and share the Good News of Jesus Christ with others and help them learn about God’s gift of eternal salvation.