Thursday 12th October
Read John 7:37-39
“On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” (NIVUK)
Today we simply enjoy some Spurgeon, reflecting on our passage.
“Do rivers of living water flow out of you?
Notice, first, that this is to be an inward work: the rivers of living water are to flow out of the midst of the man. The words are according to our version, “Out of his belly”— that is, from his heart and soul. The rivers do not flow out of his mouth: the promised power is not oratory. We have had plenty of words, floods of words; but this is heart work. The source of the rivers is found in the inner life. It is an inward work at its fountain head. It is not a work of talent and ability, and show, and glitter, and glare: it is altogether an inward work. The life-flood is to come out of the man’s inmost self, out of the bowels and essential being of the man. Homage is shown too generally to outward form and external observance, though these soon lose their interest and power; but when the Spirit of God rests within a man it exercises a home rule within him and he gives great attention to what an old divine was wont to call “the home department.” Alas, many neglect the realm within which is the chief province under our care. O my brother in Christ, if you would be useful, begin with yourself. It is out of your very soul that a blessing must come. It cannot come out of you if it is not in you: and it cannot be in you unless God the Holy Ghost places it there.
Next, it is life-giving work. Out of the heart of the man, out of the centre of his life, are to flow rivers of living water; that is to say, he is instrumentally to communicate to others the divine life. When he speaks, when he prays, when he acts, he shall so speak and pray and act that there shall be going out of him an emanation which is full of the life of grace and godliness. He shall be a light by which others shall see. His life shall be the means of kindling life in other men’s bosoms. “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”
Note the plenitude of it. The figure would have been a surprising one. if it had said, “Out of him shall flow a river of living water”; but it is not so: it says rivers…. And this is to be perpetual,— not like intermittent springs which burst forth and flow in torrents, and then cease,— but it is to be an everyday outgushing. In summer and winter, by day and by night, wherever the man is, he shall be a blessing. As he breathes, he shall breathe benedictions; as he thinks, his mind shall be devising generous things; and when he acts, his acts shall be as though the hand of God were working by the hand of man.” (‘The Indwelling and Outflowing of the Holy Spirit’, CH Spurgeon, May 28, 1882)
