The Fountain of Youth is maybe one of the most famous mythological legend. Appearing as early as the 5thcentury BC in the writings of Greek historian Herodotus, it is a spring that has been sought after through the course of time. This legend appears in stories from the 3rdcentury AD, during the time of the crusades (11th/12thcenturies), but maybe more memorably from the Age of Exploration during the 16thcentaury. During that time, according to legend, many conquistadors, explorers, colonists, and pirates sought after this mythical stream of water. Fables and stories told later on even connected i twith the discovery of modern-day Florida. The history of this mythical legend is certainly an interesting one.
Of course, now we know that the Fountain of Youth is nothing more than just myth. Maybe it was influenced by other factors and sources, even such as John 5:2-4, but it is nothing more than a story. Amazingly we find another source of water in Scripture that provides eternal life, and we don’t have to search the edges of this world to find it.
In John 4 Jesus has a conversation with a Samaritan woman and after being questioned about the water He can provide her He says in verse 14 –
“Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Who wouldn’t want this water?! The woman at the well didn’t understand the depth of Jesus’ teaching here, but even she knew that this water was a precious thing.(v.15)
A few chapters later and in John 7 we find Jesus teaching in Jerusalem and in verse 37 & 38 He mentions this “living water” again. He said, “If anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Jesus is the only one who can provide this living water which wells up to eternal life! We will never find it anywhere else. John 7:38 clarifies and says the water that dwells within is the Spirit. Jesus is the water we must drink to have the Spirit flow within us. In Acts 2:38 Peter tells us how to do just that.
To reject the living water which Jesus provides for us is to forsake God. (Jer. 2:13; 17:13) We can search our whole lives for a mythical Fountain of Youth, or we can live our whole lives with a living water that flows within in us to eternal life. Many have chosen to search for that mythical fountain and the results have all been the same: they have returned to the dust they came from. One doesn’t have to search Scripture long to find where the true eternal fountain lies.
-Corey Tackett
0 Comments