Mike Novotny - How to Satisfy Your Soul
But instead of you having to build something like this, instead of spending your whole life trying to build something so impressive you can get like from your life to the presence of God, Jesus says he just gives it. Wow! We are here! Jesus was here, not around here. But here. Earlier this year, I got to explore Israel. I'm sitting, literally, in the place where Jesus' feet touched. I saw some amazing places. The old city of Jerusalem. In the Garden of Gethsemane. Beautiful Nazareth. At the Mount of Beatitudes. Capernaum, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. And I can't wait to share these video devotions with you.
Hey. I'm standing here at Caesarea, right along the beautiful Mediterranean coast. It's a windy day. It's a busy day. But it's a beautiful day. Because I'm standing right in front of an ancient, incredible feat of engineering, the aqueduct of Caesarea. It's kind of hard to see now, but in ancient times, stretching miles and miles in that direction, water was taken from Mount Carmel, or Mount Carmel as the Jewish people would say it, and it stretched all the way past this aqueduct, miles and miles in that direction to the ancient city of Caesarea.
Well, it's crazy. They literally had not an inch, or a half an inch, or a quarter inch, or an eighth of an inch, but, like, this much of a decline, that it could make it from one source of water to the people who needed it. And you can tell from behind me, how much work it must have been. I mean, all the engineering, all the stones, all the labor, but you can understand why. If those people wanted to live, they needed water to survive. And so they were willing to do the work.
Now, standing in front of this makes me think of something that Jesus said to a woman at the well in this very land. He said, in John, chapter 4, Yeah, my favorite phrase from Jesus' teaching is "I give". Jesus was offering us something to satisfy our soul. The presence of God, the love of God, the beauty of God, the grace, mercy and forgiveness of God. But instead of you having to build something like this, instead of spending your whole life trying to build something so impressive, you could get, like, from your life to the presence of God, Jesus says he just gives it.
This is the gospel. The gift of grace. That our forgiveness and salvation isn't something we build. It's not something we work for. It's not something we bring down from heaven. No, it's a gift that our Heavenly Father gave. Jesus came to give us life. It's all mercy. It's all grace. It's all his gift. And that's why we enjoy beautiful places like this. But we praise Jesus for being an even better Savior. That's an incredible lesson we learn right here at Caesarea.