A couple of weeks ago I
visited an out of the way spot on the Arkansas-Missouri border called Mammoth
Springs. Nine million (9,000,000!) gallons of water every hour
boil up out of the earth at that site becoming the headwaters of the Spring
River. From the depths of the earth a river emerges. More than a century ago,
enterprising people created a lake, built a dam, and harnessed the power of
that flow; first as a grist mill and then, for fifty years, to generate
electricity. It is a beautiful little spot, distinguished as the 10th
largest natural spring in the world! On that rainy morning, standing by Mammoth
Spring, watching the water bubble (boil is more like it) to the surface, the
words of Jesus came to mind. “Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “If you
are thirsty, come to me! If you believe in me, come and drink! For the
Scriptures declare that rivers of living water will flow out from within.”
(When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit.”) (John 7:37)
“Come and Drink!” Jesus
invites. By faith, we turn to Him. He makes us alive to God and pours the
Spirit into us. This creates the possibility of a miraculous change. One
of the reasons we love the stories told in Acts is because they reveal the work
of Someone greater than the people in the stories. Peter and John met a
beggar whose legs were useless. The man had sat at the Temple’s door for
years. Did they simply feel pity and pat his head as they spoke
platitudes? No, the Spirit overflowed. "Peter said, “I don’t have any
money for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth, get up and walk!” Then Peter took the lame man by the right hand and
helped him up. And as he did, the man’s feet and anklebones were healed and
strengthened." (Acts 3:6-7, NLT) From them a Spring bubbled up
that flowed from Jerusalem, to Antioch, across the Empire, and to the world.
Wherever the river flowed, lives were transformed. Sin was defeated, the
Kingdom was revealed.
“Lord, let that river flow
from my life!” I pray that God would supernaturally cause me to bring
refreshing to people that I live among. I don’t want to be a person whose
hateful attitude, whose constant ‘neediness,’ whose love for Self is so
all-consuming as to turn my presence into something like a hot, dry wind.
Rather, I desire to be one who brims over with the Spirit Who brings life,
healing, and renewal. Just being a ‘nice’ person is not enough. Striving
to be a ‘kind’ man is fine, but that trait is not to be confused with the flow
of living waters. My desire, and I hope yours, too, is to be so full of
the Spirit of God that the overflow cannot be contained.
Invite the Spirit to flow
from you. "For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his
whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his
glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your
inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray
that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with
all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of
Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be
filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do
immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at
work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." (Ephesians
3:14-4:1, NIV)
__________
There Is A River
There is a river
That flows from deep
within
There is a fountain
That frees the soul from
sin
Come to this water
There is a vast supply
There is a river
That never shall run dry
There is a river
That flows from God above
There is a fountain
That's filled with His
great love
Come to this water
There is a vast supply
There is a river
That never shall run dry
There is a river
That never shall run dry
David Sapp | Max Sapp
© 1969 David Sapp Ministries
CCLI License # 810055
_________________
Jerry D. Scott, Pastor
Faith Discovery Church
Washington, NJ 07882
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