We as Christians and genuine believers in Christ need to do one thing: we need to drink of God as the fountain of living waters! Yes, we need to read the Bible, we need to pray, we need to meet with other saints, and we need to do so many other things, but first and foremost, even as we’re doing all the other things, we need to drink God.
Our God is a fountain of living waters, and any other water we drink will never satisfy or quench our thirst (John 4:13-14). How do we drink of God? There are many ways, the simplest of which is calling on the name of the Lord – O Lord Jesus! – from the depth of our being, until living water gushes out!
Also, we can drink of God by exercising our spirit as we read the Bible, by pray-reading the Word of God, by singing, by praying, etc. As long as we open our mouth and exercise our spirit, we drink God as the living water!
In His economy God desires to dispense Himself as the living water into us as His people to produce His increase, His enlargement, for His expression (see Col. 2:19: we hold the Head, from whom comes something which causes the growth of the Body into the Head).
The result of our drinking of God as the fountain of living waters is that we become His increase and His enlargement.
God’s Economy is to Dispense Himself into us to Produce His Increase
What is God’s economy? What is God’s plan and His purpose? He doesn’t merely want followers, zealous adherents to a set of laws and principles, or even people who love Him. What God desires in His economy is to dispense Himself as the living water into man so that He may produce His increase, His enlargement, to be His corporate expression.
Everything God does is organic, and when the Lord Jesus was on the earth He kept likening Himself to the living water, the bread of life, the living bread, the life, the resurrection life, etc.
Throughout the Bible God is consistent when it comes to what His economy is: He wants to be man’s life and life supply by dispensing Himself into man as living water and living bread.
When we eat of God and drink of Him, an organic process takes place in us – we are being reconstituted with God, re-arranged inwardly, and we look like Him more and more. Eventually, God as life fills us, saturates us, and is expressed through us.
This is God’s economy, to gain a corporate expression on the earth through a group of people who daily enjoy His dispensing as living water and bread of life (John 6:35)!
In Jeremiah 2:13 we see God rebuking His people of the evil of forsaking Him as the fountain of living waters. In John 4:10, 14 the Lord Jesus presents Himself to man as the fountain of living water. In John 7:38-39 we see that whoever believes into the Lord will have river of living water flowing from his innermost being.
In Rev. 22:1-2 we see that in the New Jerusalem there’s a river of water of life flowing throughout the city and the tree of life is on both sides of the river.
The seed is in Jeremiah, the development is John, and the consummation is in Revelation.
Taking God as the Fountain of Living Waters by Drinking Him
We need to see that nothing apart from God as the fountain of living waters can quench our thirst and satisfy us. Also, nothing apart from God being dispensed into us can make us His increase for His expression.
No effort to please God, get close to God, read His word (without drinking Him), acquire spiritual and biblical knowledge (without drinking God) will do. The only way for us to take God as the fountain of living waters is to drink Him.
When we drink God, when we exercise our spirit and open our mouth and heart to receive Him as living water into us, we become God’s increase and enlargement, and out of our being will flow rivers of living water!
We see the matter of drinking in Paul’s writings also: in 1 Cor. 12:13 we see that we were all baptized in one Spirit into one Body (we were immersed and put into the Spirit), and we were all given to drink one Spirit (we take the Spirit in and are saturated with the Spirit). This is the Body of Christ: a group of human beings that are immersed and lost in the Spirit (baptized in the Spirit) and who continually drink of the Spirit and are saturated with the Spirit.
In 1 Cor. 10:3-4 Paul tells us that we eat Christ as the living spiritual food and drink Him as the living water, as we see in type the Israelites doing so in the wilderness (the manna is a type of Christ and the rock that followed the Jews was also a type of Christ).
When Christ was crucified and resurrected, from Him flowed the Spirit (who was not yet before His resurrection, see John 7:39), and now we can drink of God as the Spirit for the building up of the church!
We have to admit that we drink from so many other “fountains”, and we tend to forsake God as the fountain of living waters. But day after day we need to drink of the fountain of living waters, taking in what issues of our spiritual contact with God, and we will become His increase, His reproduction, the church!
“Distractions are the devil’s devices to keep God’s people from receiving the divine dispensing.” (Witness Lee) May we be those who stay on the alert and reject any distractions from drinking!
Lord Jesus, keep us drinking! May we be those who take Paul’s advice to immerse ourselves in God as the Spirit and drink the Spirit to be saturated with God. Lord, we don’t want to forsake You as the fountain of living waters. Thank You for the fountain of water of life installed in our spirit! We simply can turn to our spirit, exercise our spirit, and we touch the fountain of life! May we really see that nothing else satisfies. Lord, make us the best drinkers of the living water, the best enjoyers of God as the fountain of life to be Your expression and enlargement on earth!
References and Further Reading
- This sharing is inspired from brother Minoru Chen’s speaking in this message and portions in, Life-study of Jeremiah (msgs. 4, 6, 12, 22), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, ITERO spring 2013 “The Experience, Growth, and Ministry of Life for the Body“, week 6 entitled, The Ministry of Life.
- Recommended further reading (Notes in the Recovery Version Bible):
# John 4:13 and footnote 1 (whoever drinks)
# 1 Cor. 12:13 and footnote 5 (baptized and given to drink)
# Rev. 22:1 and note 2 (river) and 3 (water of life) - Hymns on this topic:
# To be baptized in the Spirit / Is to get into the Spirit / And to be lost in Him. / To drink of the Spirit / Is to take the Spirit in / And have our being saturated with Him.
# What He is: He’s the river. / He’s the mighty flowing river. / He waters me in a desert land. / He’s my hiding place; He is our man. / He’s the river! Wonderful!
# My spirit turns to Thee and clings, / All else forsaking, unto Thee; / Forgetting all created things, / Remembering only “God in me.“ / Thy living Stream, Thy gracious Rain, / None wait for these, and wait in vain.
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