Anchor Devotional

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Words from the Cross: Distress

“Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’” John 19:28

When Jesus was about to die, He spoke the words that He was thirsty. He’d been falsely accused, tried, and beaten. Then He carried His own heavy cross up a hill. Distress and thirst consumed Him.

We are told of an earlier time Jesus was thirsty. Traveling through Samaria, He sat down to rest by a well. It was midday, and when a woman came to draw water, He asked her for a drink. She was shocked because she—a Samaritan—and a Jew would not normally associate with each other. Jesus told her, “If you knew … who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water ... whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst” (John 4: 10, 14).

Our hearts will thirst unendingly until we realize we long for our Savior. It’s that same longing quenched only by the Holy Spirit which Jesus presents in a shocking picture for us on the cross. The very One who is the Living Water was thirsty. He endured being forsaken by the Father in every way … all so that we might be brought near to Him and thirst no more.

SCRIPTURE FOCUS
John 19:28-29

INSIGHT
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!” (Isaiah 55:1)

THROUGH THE BIBLE IN A YEAR
Joshua 19-20
Psalm 106
Romans 5-6

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