Today we need to first enjoy God as the fountain of living waters and then be one with the Lord to encourage and shepherd others to experience and enjoy God as the fountain of living waters.
The ministry of life encourages the saints, shepherds them, leads them, and guides them to one thing – to experience and enjoy God as the fountain of living waters, taking Him as their unique source of life. Whenever problems happen either in our life or in others’ lives, there is only one solution: return to the Lord as the fountain of living waters!
We shouldn’t be in the advice-giving, counseling, help-giving, or idea-dispensing business, but rather render true help and shepherding to the saints by leading them to the Lord that they may drink of Him! Real help and real shepherding is not offering your best idea to solve the problem, but helping others to drink of God as the living water!
How much we need to be saved from offering our opinion, advice, idea, and counsel! What really helps us in going on with the Lord and in going through all kinds of situations, problems, sufferings, and difficult things is returning to Him from anything that we took as the source previously, and drinking of God as the fountain of living waters!
We are not here to be successful in “solving problems”, “removing the problems”, or “sorting out the issues” – we are here to minister life to one another so that Christ may grow in us and be expressed through us!
The more we drink of Christ as the fountain of living waters the more we become His enlargement, His expansion, as His Body, His increase, His Bride for His satisfaction!
Experiencing and Enjoying God as the Fountain of Living Waters
In Jeremiah 2:13 God points out two evils that the people of Israel have committed, and these two evils are the source of all problems: they have forsaken God as the fountain of living waters, and they hew out for themselves cisterns – broken cisterns, which hold no water.
God’s intention in His economy is not that He would be “the God in the heavens” and we “His people on earth” do this and that to please Him. What God desires in His economy is to be the fountain of living waters to satisfy us as His people for our enjoyment.
He wants us to quit “digging for water” in the world, music, sports, entertainment, knowledge, movies, traveling, etc, and come back to Him as the source of living water which can truly quench our thirst. Because God’s people don’t take Him as the fountain of living waters of which they drink, there are all kinds of problems.
God wants to be our life and our life supply, and from the creation of man, He put him in front of the tree of life, showing us that God as life wants to enter into man and be man’s life.
But again and again we choose other things as the “cistern of water”, going to this or that thing in the world today to find satisfaction and rest. We may even rely on things like knowledge, spiritual understanding, eloquence, capability, ability to solve problems, our natural kindness, our natural goodness, our wittiness, our intelligence, etc instead of drinking of God as the living waters.
In Jer. 2:13 God exposes these two evils, in John 4:13-14 and 7:37-39 Christ came and called us to come to Him and drink of Him, and in Rev. 22:1 we see that for eternity we will be drinking of the river of water of life and eating the tree of life.
But what about us today? Right now, what do you drink? Starting this morning, and throughout the day, what is your source? God doesn’t want His chosen and redeemed people to take anything other than Himself as the source. We need to take God as our source and be one with Him to receive whatever issues from Him (Rom. 11:36)!
The Goal: the Church as Christ’s Increase to be His Bride
What God desires is to have a group of people who are built up together to express Him in full. In His economy, His plan, His purpose, God aims to have a group of human beings who have His life and nature inwardly and His image and likeness outwardly to express Him as His increase and expansion on the earth (Gen. 1:26; Eph. 1:10).
The way God obtains this group of people is by us, His believers, drinking of Him daily so that we may become one with Him and live Him out for His corporate expression (see Eph. 3:9; 4:16). God Himself is the fountain of living waters for us to drink, and His goal is to produce the church as His increase to be His fullness for His expression (Eph. 1:5, 9, 22-23).
Just as Eve was the increase of Adam by being built from the rib of Adam, so the church is the increase of Christ by being built with the resurrection life of Christ typified by the water that flowed out from His side on the cross (John 19:34).
John the Baptist saw this – he saw that Christ must increase and he must decrease, and he saw that Christ is the Bridegroom coming to seek for a bride, which is His increase, the church! Because God has an economy, He became the fountain of living waters for man to drink and become His increase, His counterpart, His bride, the church (see John 3:29; 4:12; Rev. 19:7-8).
Helping Others Enjoy God as the Fountain of Living Waters
God doesn’t want many followers, many dedicated people, many church-going-Christians, or even many good people; God desires to dispense Himself into man as living water so that man may be reconstituted with God and become His increase, His enlargement, and His expression on the earth.
The way God gains His counterpart for eternity is by being the fountain of living waters to us, and the way we become God’s increase and His counterpart (thus fulfilling our purpose in being a man) is by drinking Him and taking Him in moment-by-moment as the living water!
Drinking is the way for us to be God’s increase! And as we drink of God and take Him as the fountain of living waters, we will also help others to drink of Him and take Him as their source, so that they would also become His increase.
In the ministry of life, we need to be one with the Lord to encourage the saints to experience and enjoy God as the fountain of living waters, taking Him as their unique source.
Lord, we come to You as the fountain of living waters. We repent for trying to hew cisterns for ourselves that would replace You. Lord, keep exposing the broken cisterns, and keep drawing us to come to You as the fountain. We don’t want to forsake You, and we don’t want to drink of anything else. Lord Jesus, gain Your increase, Your church, Your bride, by our drinking of You! May we be those who are one with You to shepherd and help others to return to God as the fountain of living waters!
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. 1, 3), 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.
- Further reading: John 19:34 and note on “blood and water” in the Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Once I thirsted for a fountain, / Something deep that would satisfy, / But the fountain that I’d drink from, / Left me searching and still so dry. / Then one day I found Him, / He satisfied my thirst, / Became in me a deeper source / Whence living waters burst. / Now I drink Him! / Jesus, Jesus is my life now,
# Christ has come to be life, the processed divine Trinity. / God the Father’s the source, a fountain emerging to be. / God the Son as a gushing up spring, / And the Spirit’s a river for life imparting / Oh how can this miracle be? The Triune God flowing in me!
# Flow through me, Lord, a weak and earthly vessel, / Cleansed by Thy blood, and quickened at Thy call. / Flow through me, Lord, all utterly abandoned, / To Thy dear service, great, or high, or small. - Pictures credit: Jer. 2:13 online here, and a picture from a friend on FB.
About aGodMan
A wonderful posting—I will forward this to many more as I enjoy calling upon the Lord! Calling His name is the practical and enjoyable way to drink of the living water.