What do you collect?

For a century and a half after New York City was founded in 1624, their water supply came from two crystal-clear springs that flowed into what was called the Collect. The residents of Manhattan used this sixty-foot deep pond covering 48 acres for recreation activities. Swimming and ice skating would take a toll, but not so much as sheer abuse of this natural resource. By the 1780s water quality declined due to garbage, slop buckets, and even dead animals being dumped into it. In 1803, the city started to fill the Collect. The area today is covered with concrete.

Now the city depends on three watersheds with a total area of 1,969 square miles. However, deep below the Criminal Court Building those original springs still give forth sweet water. Where does that water go? Congress decided it should be funneled into large sewers that eventually carry it to the Hudson River. What once was dependable and pure has been neglected and goes totally unused. Not only that, after the pond was filled, tenement houses were built over the Collect area and it became the poorest section of Manhattan, filled with prostitution, casinos, and sin of virtually all forms.

I found all this while trying to illustrate the incredible value of grace and how important it is to not neglect this precious gift that God offers. If anyone takes it, they are blessed. If they refuse, they might find costly substitutes, but they will also pollute their lives with sin and miss out on the wonder of God’s grace.

John wrote, “And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:16-17).

The grace and truth of God could be illustrated by springs of pure water. Jesus said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38).

John explains in the next verse that Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit who is the source of that pure and “living” water; He becomes a blessing to everyone who takes a sip. In other words, the life of a Christian who walks with Christ and is filled with the Holy Spirit is like that Collect fed by those springs underneath the city. That person becomes a blessing to many people.

Another thought comes out of these verses from John 1. While the law of God appears here to be contrasted by grace, the next verse is showing that this is not so. The relation between Jesus Christ and Moses and the law is one of fulfillment. The grace of God revealed in the Old Testament was perfectly manifested in Jesus Christ.

Old Testament grace is this: God did not have to provide atonement for sinners. He didn’t even have to tell people that they were sinners. He could have destroyed the whole works of them with legitimate reason (like He did with the flood), but He did not. Instead, He gave people a Law that revealed His holiness and their lack of it. Romans 3:20 says that “by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” The purpose of Law is God’s grace in revealing our need. We are thirsty.

Then He gave a sacrificial system whereby sins could be forgiven. His people were not saved by this system, or by keeping the Law (which they couldn’t anyway), but by faith. They needed to trust Him in full recognition that it was only God’s grace that kept them from eternal punishment. In faith, they looked forward to that perfect sacrifice which is Jesus Christ. In Him, all the Law is fulfilled. He not only kept it, but took our punishment for not keeping it.

What does this have to do with unpolluted water? Just this, if a person knows about Jesus and knows that grace is offered freely, but rejects it, they are like the people of New York who threw their crap into the free and pure streams they were offered. The Bible says:

For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.” (2 Peter 2:20-22)

My devotional reading today asks the question: Is the experience of God’s grace in your life a thrilling thing?

Yesterday the grace of God seemed even more amazing than usual. Our Bible class offered truth upon truth of how to overcome the enemy who threatens our spiritual lives. The music and the sermon lifted my heart even higher as our pastor described the compassion of God and challenged us to be like Him. On the way home, and throughout the day, I kept thinking about God’s grace. He has poured it out on me. He forgave all my sins, put the Holy Spirit in my heart, helps me understand His Word, calls me to serve Him. I enjoy a wonderful and rich communion with other believers and am so blessed to belong to His family. He opens my eyes to see the world as His Creation, and yet speaks to me as His child and loves me in a personal and intimate way.

Divine grace is given through Moses to show us that everyone needs to drink. We will die without Living water. Divine grace is intensified and manifested in a new mode, offered to us as Living Water when the Word, Jesus Christ, became flesh. Jesus Christ is full of grace and truth and offers to pour both into our hearts.

I can relate to that Collect. I feel like a pond of fresh and living water. How foolish would I be to toss junk into that deep pool? His life, lived in me, is too precious and a blessing beyond anything else.

My heart often aches for the myriads who don’t know about the Spring and miss His flow into their lives. I ache even more for the myriads who actually do know about the Spring and would rather cover it with the concrete of their hard hearts.