John 7:37-39 (NIV): On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood 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.” 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.
Many people, when they read this passage, focus on Pentecost and people being filled with the Holy Spirit. And Pentecost was when God poured out His Spirit on His people – first on the 120 that gathered in the upper room, and shortly thereafter on the 3000 that came rushing into the kingdom after hearing Peter’s message. That was the moment when God began to fulfill the promises that were made through the prophets, to restore the hearts of His people, and to reshape their lives through the internal presence of His Spirit in them.
But God’s Spirit was never intended to become a prisoner within people, merely doing a work in their hearts and then becoming a glorified conscience that merely guides them through their day. Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit in this speech as “streams of living water” that flow from within the lives of “whoever” believes in Him. To the Samaritan woman, He described this same “living water” as an artesian well, bubbling up and pouring out of the lives of people. (John 4:13-14)
The point is, God’s Spirit is not and cannot be static. He is not merely a “presence” in a person’s life; He is the very presence of the Godhead, dynamically changing a person into a living conduit of the whole power of God. And that power is not meant to give a person an “experience,” or to merely give them gifts; it is designed to change the world, to bring God’s presence and His power to bear every place that His people set their feet. It is not merely to fill a person; it is to flow out of them in a mighty stream that touches and changes lives everywhere.
If we want to see what this actually looks like in real life, all we have to do is to take a look at Peter, and John, and Paul. These men did much more than merely live “in the Spirit,” and God’s Spirit did much more than merely live in them. They willingly and consciously became a conduit for God’s power to flow through. And, as a consequence, they literally changed the world everywhere they went.
Father, we really need to recapture YOUR understanding of how Your Spirit was designed to work Not IN us, but through us Not for our own blessing, or comfort, or even our own holiness, but to work through us to bring all of that blessing, and power, and holiness dynamically into the lives of others, to literally work through us to change this world. Help us, Lord, to be that, to do that, in all of the power of Your Spirit. Amen.