Picture # 8: The Living Water, The Holy Spirit
(John 7:14-39).
Key verses: 37-39
This 8th candid snapshot of the maturing Christian as found in the Gospel of John is the picture of Jesus as the Living Water.
It’s a picture of the Holy Spirit of God working in the believer’s life.
Anyone who is willing to believe in God, and do the will of God, will know that Jesus’ teaching has full authority and is from God(John 7:17).
You and I cannot have a personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ and come away from that encounter the same person we were before our encounter.
That’s because the light of the knowledge of the glory of God is Jesus(II Corinthians 4:6).
It’s not possible for it to rain or snow and there be no effects from it.
It’s not possible for dynamite to blow up, and there be no effects from it.
And it’s not possible for somebody to meet Jesus and remain the same.
“If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation, the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.”
When Jesus came into my life, he reached out his hand of mercy and grace.
He forgave my sins, and deep within my heart, I still cannot comprehend how or why He did what He did in my life, because “the secret things belong unto the Lord our God…(Deut. 29:29).
There were three yearly feasts which every male Jew was required to attend in Jerusalem.
Jesus kept the Law, so He had to go to Jerusalem during the Feast of Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Feast of Pentecost.
The Feast of Tabernacles is what is described here in John Chapter 7(see Leviticus Chapter 23).
It was a feast of great joy to celebrate Israel’s wonderful deliverance out of the land of Egypt.
This was also on occasion called the Feast of Tents because the Israelites lived in tents during the 40-year wilderness wanderings.
There was the pouring of water in the temple at Jerusalem, with a double portion poured on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, to remind the people that God gave them water to drink from the rock in the wilderness when they were dying of thirst.
The priest brought the water from the pool of Siloam, and poured out literally barrels and barrels of water.
Verse 11 says “…at the Feast the Jews were watching for Him and asking, `Where is that man?’”
You see, the world has always been hostile to Christ because Christ is the Light of the world.
Jesus turns on the Light and that Light reveals everything that is wrong, not only wrong with the world, but wrong in our hearts.
His very presence in the world breeds hostility in the hearts of those who want to rid themselves and rid the world of Him.
In this scene, we find that even the High Priest was against Jesus.
In the middle of Jerusalem, crowded by people who had come to the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus was preaching and teaching.
So, here is the candid snapshot of the maturing Christian in this 8th picture: Jesus is the Living Water.
On the last day of the great feast, at the moment when the priests were pouring out this double portion of water from the barrels, Jesus stood up in their presence and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him”(John 7:37, 38).
Jesus, in saying this, took something that was precious in a spiritual sense to the Jews, and He used it in an allegorical way to point to the deeper spiritual truth that He is that Rock out of which spiritual water comes.
In saying this, Jesus was saying to the world that He is God.
Look at First Corinthians 10:4 “…for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.”
Jesus does not limit the word thirst. If anyone thirsts, He will give him or her spiritual drink.
Are you thirsty?
Are you drinking from the mud holes of the world and not quenching your thirst?
Jesus says to come to Him, and out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
If you come to Jesus, He will meet your needs.
And the true sign of the Spirit of God living in you is that you will become a blessing to somebody else.
Rev. Jimmy Davis
Bayview Baptist Church
5300 Two Notch Road
Columbia, SC 29204
Telephone: 803-754-8690
Email: BayviewBaptist@aol.com
