DREW: When Jesus rises from the dead, He ascends into heaven and sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts. The Spirit is the lifegiving water that flows out of us to others. In John, chapter 7, verses 38 and 39, Jesus says, “Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” Listen to this verse in Ezekiel, chapter 36, verses 26 and 27 and then I’ll explain: God says, “I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone” -- there it is -- “from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” We have this heart of stone towards God. God says, I’m going to remove that. I’m going to take the heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh, but in order to do that I have to send my Spirit from on high into your heart to apply the redemption that Christ has accomplished. When I do that and I send my Spirit into your heart, that heart of stone is gone, the heart of flesh replaces it and Romans 5 says God, by the Spirit, has put a love for God within our hearts. It’s a love for God that we now have and because the stone has been replaced with a heart of flesh, because Jesus has taken the judgement, now out of the heart of flesh can flow springs of living water, because the stone has now been turned to flesh and water can flow.

So lifegiving waters flow to us from above in order to flow through us to others. What does it look like for living water to be flowing out of us? Living water is flowing water. You know, have you ever seen a pond that’s small? There’s no living water; it’s still water. All this stuff grows on it. Living water is fresh. It’s life giving. It’s flowing. What does it look like for living water to be flowing out of us in the Biblical sense?

LOLLIS: I think it’s an interesting parallel to think about what the great commission calls us to and if we are obedient to sharing with people both that the penalty has been paid and you also have the opportunity for living water then you’re really presenting the Gospel in a holistic fashion. It isn’t just, hey, you’re getting your sins forgiven and you’re buying fire insurance, but you’re also getting living water much like the woman at the well, to whom Jesus said, hey, I’ll give you water so that you’ll never be thirsty again, and that’s an amazing feeling.

DREW: One of the things that I think about in addition to what Lollis said is think of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 22-23: The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those are probably just examples, it’s not an exhaustive list, but the fruit of the Spirit is what flows through us because of the work of Christ and the Spirit within us now. So it’s a total transformation of who we are as people, that’s what it has to be, and if it’s streams of living water, it has to flow to others.

PENNY: I was just going to say you’re talking about streams of living water, but first and foremost if our relationship with the Lord Jesus is not central then you’re not going to have that water going out. So we’re going to be living in the flesh. And I think that’s so crucial, especially in the culture where we live, in the Southeast where you see an abundance of churches and an abundance of people in attendance at church, but who are we worshipping? And in our hearts, if we haven’t made Jesus Lord and we haven’t really understood who our Savior is and what He gives us and where He wants to lead us and that we’re following Him, then we’re not going to understand the real life that He wants us to be living while we’re here on earth. I mean, we’re always going to be with Him. We’re with Him now spiritually and we’re with Him in the heavens spiritually and, physically, we’ll be with Him one day and see him face to face, but I think there’s so much more to that that Jesus wants to give us and it’s pursuing that love relationship with him. That love relationship is where the fruit of the Spirit, like you’re talking about, come out of. It comes out of love. So if we don’t have love, like Paul says, we have nothing, and that’s where it begins.

DREW: Well, that fits beautifully. It leads us right into the fifth point.