A Lent devotional on 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. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.“ 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.”
I was having a conversation the other day where I was asked how I do mission, how I fulfil that great commandment from Christ, to go out and make disciples of all men (Matthew 28:19). I had to think about this for a minute. Although I am often involved in leading worship, that is only a fraction of my life. The call from Jesus is much bigger than that. My answer to the question was that I pray that I live a life that is open and authentic, where my faith in our Lord and Saviour is clear to those I meet in everything that I do and say. “Yes!” his enthusiastic reply was. "You live an incarnational life where the Spirit flows in you and through you to those around you." Wowsers. That’s a lot to live up to, no pressure!
But that is the promise that Christ gives us in John 7:38. His promise describes an occurrence that is a natural outcome of following Him. It should be as easy to us as breathing. As obvious to those we meet as our accents, our appearance.
First though, Christ calls us. "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink." Before we can live a life of fruitfulness, where rivers of living water, the Holy Spirit, literally consume our whole lives and overflow to those around us, we must make the decision. Do we come to the Lord our God, knowing what it means to answer His call? That our lives will never be the same and will never be wholly ours again. And do we drink of that Living Water to such an extent that we are fully filled up and will never be thirsty again, that we live incarnational lives where the Spirit is at work in us and flows from us into the lives of the people around us?
