HEALING WATERS

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said,
streams of living water will flow from within him.
JOHN 7:38

A lot happened to me stemming from the outpouring of the Spirit beginning in 1994. I guess it all started for me with an adjustment. I often joke that my “receiver” had been broken. Just as a radio has a receiver, every Christian also has to actually become a receiver for his own well being as well as for those he is to reach out to. Well, mine had been broken. As a young Christian I had unknowingly grown adept at receiving. Later on, the years of pastoring had dulled my spiritual senses and as a result my “receiver” had been broken. In the Holy Spirit atmosphere of revival, The Lord began to open my heart again. I began to drink living waters. My soul began to spring back into life. Here are some powerful words about today’s verse from Andrew Murray.

“Jesus said in his conversation with the Samaritan woman, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst” (John 4:13–14). In today’s text the promise is even greater: Rivers of living water will flow from his heart, bringing life and blessing to others.
John says that this refers to the Holy Spirit who, while Christ lived, had not yet been poured out. Christ first had to be sacrificed to God by the eternal Spirit and, by virtue of the resurrection, be declared by the Holy Spirit as the Son of God (see Romans 1:4).
Then only would the Son of God receive power from the Father to pour out the Holy Spirit, for the children of God to be able to declare, “The Holy Spirit of Christ lives in me.”

What does one need to be able to experience the promise of the streams of living water? Only one thing: an intimate clinging to Christ—an undivided submission to Him and the assurance that His Spirit will do the work within you that you yourself cannot do. You need a faith which trusts Him from day to day to let the living water flow from you.”

These waters are called “living” for a reason. Everywhere the river goes everything springs back to life. You see learning to receive was not the end of this experience, it was the opening of the door into a whole new way of life. All you need is to open a crack in your closed heart, the water is looking for a way to come flooding in. From that point, everything begins to change. Your heart is healed, spiritual hunger replaces apathy and dryness, bondages to habits are all broken, and the broken parts of your life begin to come alive. Healing waters have come, drink in and be made whole.