Many times the Israelites turned from their God of abundant supply to the gods of the surrounding nations—even to the gods the people of Israel had defeated by trusting their own God.

The Children of Israel also created their own gods that had ears but they could not hear, had legs but they could not move, had eyes but they could not see, and had mouths but they could not speak.

In Jeremiah 2:13 God describes the Israelites’ rejection of Him for other gods as committing two evils. They had rejected the fountain of living waters, and had dug broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Some of us who are involved in the Kingdom’s work today are guilty of the sin of two evils. In some ways, we have turned away from the fountain of living waters and created cisterns that can hold no water.

We do not have to fall into willful rejection of God to forsake the fountain of living water. We can be extremely active in the Kingdom’s work and yet not be drawing our resources from God.

In John 15:5 Jesus says:

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

In the Kingdom’s work, we can create strategies and attempt to live them out in our own wisdom and strength. When we do so, we commit the two evils. We forsake the fountain of living water, and we make for ourselves cisterns that cannot hold water.

We try our best to make our self-made strategies work but we end up in burnout.

What can we do if we realize that we have forsaken the fountain of living water and have dug cisterns that can hold no water? We can turn from our self-made cisterns that can hold no water to the life of grace and draw from the fountain of living waters.