If you’re settling for stagnant…

Our youngest son recently earned a trip to play miniature golf (that’s what some home school moms offer their kids for finishing school by 2:15pm every day).

   

My oldest son was fascinated, as always, with playing in the water (which is supposed to be off-limits).

  

But that didn’t stop him.

At the back of the course, however, the water wasn’t as inviting.

The stagnant water certainly didn’t have the appeal of the flowing and rushing water.  There was no lively excitement here (unless you’re interested in breeding Texas mosquitoes).

And isn’t that life for so many of us?  In the course of life, there are the days of living water.  Yet the occasional stagnant seasons seem to linger.  We certainly understand, though, the choice is ours.

But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again—ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life. (John 4:14)

The picture our Lord described in John 4:14 is not that of a simple stream of water, but an overflowing fountain. Continue to “be filled” (Ephesians 5:18) and the sweetness of your vital relationship to Jesus will flow as generously out of you as it has been given to you. If you find that His life is not springing up as it should, you are to blame— something is obstructing the flow. Was Jesus saying to stay focused on the Source so that you may be blessed personally? No, you are to focus on the Source so that out of you “will flow rivers of living water”— irrepressible life (John 7:38).

We are to be fountains through which Jesus can flow as “rivers of living water” in blessing to everyone. Yet some of us are like the Dead Sea, always receiving but never giving, because our relationship is not right with the Lord Jesus. As surely as we receive blessings from Him, He will pour out blessings through us. But whenever the blessings are not being poured out in the same measure they are received, there is a defect in our relationship with Him.

Is there anything between you and Jesus Christ? Is there anything hindering your faith in Him? If not, then Jesus says that out of you “will flow rivers of living water.” It is not a blessing that you pass on, or an experience that you share with others, but a river that continually flows through you. Stay at the Source, closely guarding your faith in Jesus Christ and your relationship to Him, and there will be a steady flow into the lives of others with no dryness or deadness whatsoever.

Is it excessive to say that rivers will flow out of one individual believer? Do you look at yourself and say, “But I don’t see the rivers”? Through the history of God’s work you will usually find that He has started with the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but those who have been steadfastly true to Jesus Christ.  (Oswald Chambers)