04/20/2018
Are you satisfied with the state of your spiritual life? Does living water pour from you as Jesus said it would, or do you pray for it, and feel like your words are drawing nothing out of you? If this is true of where you are in faith, then do not be disappointed, and have patience as you divine the water that is within you.
“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
John 7:38-39 ESV
I know a country Pastor that can take a Y shaped sprig from a tree, and holding the two forked ends of it in his hands, walk slowly around a house until suddenly the leg of the Y dips down towards the ground, and more specifically towards the hidden water beneath it. When this happens he will double check himself and then mark the spot as he announces “Dig your well here!” This is called divining or dowsing for water, and the person who can do it will be able to tell you how much water there is, and if it is fresh water or sulphur water. This sounds mystical, and I guess it is, and yet it works.
As believers we are all a little like those country yards; there is living Water within us, but it just hasn’t reached the surface, to know it is there we would need a divining stick, and believe in it His process enough to dig the well. As I was reading Andrew Murray, he wrote about this process of achieving the full power of the Holy Spirit, and that in some of us it takes time to reach. Listen to his words...
“Do not imagine that the joy and power of Pentecost must be felt and seen immediately. Restoration takes time and often comes slowly. At first, one receives the full blessing as only a seed: the full life is wrapped up as if it were a capsule. We tend to judge God and His work in us by sight and feeling. We forget that the whole process is a work of faith.” - Andrew Murray
The interesting thing about water is that it is everywhere; it is in the sky above us, in the rain that falls on us, in the rivers that flow around us, and in the lakes and seas that hold it as reservoirs, but all of this is dwarfed by what lies beneath our feet within the earth itself. We see evidence of it in springs and artesian wells that bubble forth out of the ground in various strengths. Some of these flow so slowly that the ground just seems to remain wet, while others, like the headwaters of the Jordan River flow up in great force. Water is life, and so is Jesus Christ. Like Him, water brings with it the origins of life itself.
“Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."”
John 14:6-7 ESV
In Jesus we see what was once hidden from us, God, and the Holy Spirit reveals Him to us as well. Yet like all relationships, it starts as acquaintance, grows into friendship, and then into love. Like ground water it begins hidden deep in the earth, and then seeps to the surface... stronger and stronger until at last it flows forth with great force. However, the truth remains, and that is the life in the water, no matter where it is.
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
John 14:26 ESV
When I was a boy, my grandparents had a farm hidden in the forested countryside of North Carolina, and down a red dirt road from their house was the home of my Aunt Margie. It was a white clapboard home sitting up on flat rocks with a hand dug well in the yard which looked every bit like a wishing well you see illustrated in children’s books. But, if you walked just beyond the small yard into the forest there was a magical place we called Dripping Rock. It was a rock outcropping in the hillside beneath a dense canopy of trees that was covered with moss, and seeped water slowly but steadily into a small pool at its base that, in turn, fed the trickle of a creek which made its way down a rocky ravine before disappearing once again into the ground. As I boy this was a place of magic and mystery where salamanders and crawfish lived, and where a barefoot boy could wile away hours on hot summer afternoons in the cool of this place. It couldn’t hold a candle to the flowing and gurgling creek that ran in the hollow that separated her house from my grandparent’s, and yet here there was the same life, and the same refreshing clear water. This is our life with God, and this is our relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Whether we draw it cold and clear from a well, soak our feet in it in a still pool at the foot of a rock outcropping, or wade across it as it flows across the road on the way to our Aunt’s house, it is the same water... it is the same life.
As believers, we all have living Water within us. How our water reveals itself depends on a number of things, but it is all by God, and all life. I have prayed over and over with people who have sought a greater manifestation of the Holy Spirit as they wanted the evidence to flow mightily from them; I have prayed with people who barely uttered a word before they began speaking loudly in tongues, and I have prayed with people who at the end of our prayer had no physical manifestation, and yet were changed forever. It is all Living Water, and even when you judge it to be less than someone else’s, it is not... all water is life, and you carry it with you from the moment you pray the sinner’s prayer, and place your hand in the hand of Jesus Christ. Remember what Jesus said...
“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'"”
John 7:38 ESV
The flow of Living Water is spiritual, and whether it comes evidenced in tongues, or any other manifestation, it is life, and flows within, and from all who believe in Jesus. The greater the relationship we have with God and Jesus Christ, the stronger the flow. Don’t judge this flow of the spiritual water from you by bold physical evidence, but by the relationship you have with the Lord, and the impact your life has on those around you. Get a sprig and divine yourself... you will find that there is water there, just waiting to be brought forth.
Prayer:
Father, thank you for the Living Water that flows from my heart, and thank you for your Son Jesus Christ and the Living Water he brings forth from within me. I pray Holy Father for all those who desire to feel the rush of this water in a more tangible way, let them feel it welling up within them, but Father, I pray too for those quiet souls who carry rivers of Living Water into the world, and show no signs of the torrent of salvation that flows from them, except in the lives that are washed clean in their wake. In Jesus we find life Father, because He speaks of you, and through His blood He has washed us clean of sin and death. In Jesus the water of life has been imparted to us, and in Him we have begun to leave first a dampness, then a trickle, and finally a river behind us as we walk through this world. Help us to see the Living Water Lord, and pay less attention to the leaves that float upon it. Help us to understand that as we grow in you, so does the volume of water that flows from us... this is the life within us Gracious Father, and this is the message you desire to be brought into all the world... the gospel of Jesus Christ is blood, it is Living Water, and it is you. Holy, Holy, Holy are you my God, and great is your Son Jesus Christ.
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb”
Revelation 22:1 ESV
Rich Forbes