What God wants from us, His people, is that we would drink of Him as the fountain of living waters so that He may be the source of our life and our being; we need to take God as the fountain of living waters by drinking of Him day by day.
This week we come to the second main crystal in the book of Jeremiah which is, The Kernel in the Book of Jeremiah.
The book of Jeremiah is like a walnut, having a hard shell; if we were to read this book without any help from the ministry, we wouldn’t know what’s going on.
However, if we “crack the shell” of Jeremiah and focus only on the kernel, we will enjoy so much!
The kernel of the book of Jeremiah includes three matters: 1. What God wants from us, 2. What we are in our fallen condition, and 3. What Christ is to us.
In order for us to see these three things, we need to “crack” the shell of Jeremiah and concentrated on the kernel inside.
The kernel inside the book of Jeremiah is the complete teaching of the entire Bible.
In Jeremiah we see what God wants from us, what we are in our fallen condition, and what Christ is to us; this is the complete teaching of the entire Bible.
What God wants from us is His heart’s desire; what we are in our condition is pitiful – we’re in a pitiful condition; what Christ is to us negates the things in our fallen condition and accomplishes God’s heart’s desire for us.
What God wants from us is mainly seen in Jer. 2:13, which reveals that God is the fountain of living waters.
He wants us to drink of Him as the fountain of living waters; however, we may have hew out for ourselves cisterns (broken cisterns) which hold no water.
May we return to the Lord; may we drink Him and take Him as the fountain of living waters by calling on His name, thanking Him, rejoicing, praying, and praising, drawing water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation!
God wants us take Him as the Fountain of Living Waters and Drink of Him day by day!
Jeremiah reveals what God wants from us, His people; God mainly wants to be the fountain of living waters (Jer. 2:13).
In His economy God intends to be the fountain of living waters, the source of living waters, to satisfy us for our enjoyment.
God wants us to take Him as the source, the fountain, of our being. The only way for us to take God as the fountain of living waters is for us to drink of Him day by day (1 Cor. 12:13; Rom. 11:36).
We need to drink of the Lord as the fountain of living waters day by day, again and again!
As we drink of Him, He is the fountain of life, the fountain of blood, the fountain of health, and the fountain of joy (see Hymns #523 by A. B. Simpson).
As we drink of Him, we receive life, we are cleansed by His blood, we are healthy spiritually and psychologically, and we are living, active, full of joy in the Lord.
May we come to the altar of God, to God our exceeding joy (Psa. 43:5).
It is the joy of the Lord that is our strength (Neh. 8:10); we can testify that, when we enjoy the Lord, He becomes our strength.
The Lamb in the midst of the throne shepherds us and guides us to springs of water of life (Rev. 7:17); the Lamb-God shepherds us, coming down to our level to shepherd us, to the weak becoming week, to guide us to the fountain of living waters for us to drink of Him.
Hallelujah, in His presence there’s fullness of joy (Psa. 16:11), and when we are in His presence, we have the salvation of His countenance (Psa. 42:5), for He is the salvation of our countenance (Psa. 42:11).
When God lifts up His presence upon us, His countenance becomes His smile; first, He saves us by His countenance, and this becomes the salvation of our countenance.
Out of Him and through Him and to Him are all things; to Him be glory forever and ever, Amen (Rom. 11:36).
In all our service for the Lord we should do all things out from Him as the fountain of living waters, the source, through Him as the means, and unto Him for His glory!
As we drink the Lord continually as the fountain of living waters, we enjoy Him as our constant supply, we are full of joy, and He is our source and our everything!
How do we drink of the Lord as the fountain of living waters? It is by calling on the name of the Lord continually with thanking, rejoicing, praying, and praising (see Isa. 12:3-4; John 4:10, 14; Rom. 10:12; 1 Thes. 5:16-18; 4:3).
May we persevere in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving (Col. 4:2).
As we pray, we give thanks; as we call on the Lord, we drink of Him! Amen, with joy shall we draw waters out of the springs of salvation, and we shall give thanks to the Lord!
As we drink of Him as the fountain of living waters, we make His deeds known among His people, sharing what Christ has accomplished, what He has done, what He is carrying out, and the all-inclusive gospel of God’s economy!
As we do that, we drink of the fountain of living waters.
The wages of sin is death, but the gift of life is Christ Himself! We need to ask the Lord for the living water, even as the Samaritan woman did in John 4, and He will give us the living water right now and every day!
The reason we are not rich enough with the riches of Christ is because we don’t call on Him enough!
When we call on the name of the Lord, when we invoke His person, we get the living water.
The will of God is our sanctification, and to be sanctified moment by moment and hour by hour is to always rejoice, unceasingly pray, and in always give thanks (1 Thes. 5:16-18).
Amen, may we call on the name of the Lord, unceasingly pray, and always rejoice to enjoy God as the fountain of living waters in our daily experience!
Lord, we take You as the source, the fountain of living waters to satisfy us for our enjoyment! Amen, Lord, we return to You from any other thing to just enjoy You and drink of You. We want to drink of You day by day. In Your presence is fullness of joy, and Your joy is our strength. We come to You, dear Lord, to call on Your name continually with much thanking, praying, and praising! Amen, we open to draw water with rejoicing from You as the fountain of living waters! We come to drink! We call on Your name: give us to drink, dear Lord! We are thirsty for You as the living water!
Drawing Water out of the Springs of the Divine Salvation and Drinking the Living Water
In Psa. 36:8 we are told that God will cause us to drink of the river of His pleasures; we may not be drinking right now, but sooner or later He will bring us to drink of Him as the fountain of living waters.
Isaiah 12:3 shows us that the way to receive God as our salvation is to draw water from the springs of salvation, that is, to drink Him (also see Psa. 36:8; John 4:14; 7:37; 1 Cor. 12:13; Rev. 22:17; 1 Chron. 16:8; Psa. 105:1; 116:14, 12-13, 17).
According to what we see in Gen. 2:8-9, after God created man He put him in a garden called Eden, which means, pleasure, indicating that God wanted to please man and make man happy.
God is not against us; He wants to become our pleasure and satisfaction. When the Lord was on the earth, He called us again and again to come to Him and drink – whoever thirst, let Him come to Me and drink!
The whole Bible ends with the Spirit and the bride speaking in oneness that whoever is thirsty, let him come and drink!
A very simple way for us to drink of God as the fountain of living waters is to call on the name of the Lord; as frail and mortal men, we call on the Lord’s name to enjoy Him as our strength and as the immortal One.
We shouldn’t live by what we are or what we can do; we should simply draw water out of the springs of the divine salvation by calling on the name of the Lord!
We need to daily tell the Lord, Lord Jesus, we love You (Psa. 16:1); and then all throughout the day we should call on His name, for He delivers our soul.
What shall we return to Jehovah for all His benefits to us? He gives us a huge benefits package with all kinds of divine and mystical benefits; what can we return to Him for all these benefits?
We should simply take up the cup of salvation and call on the name of Jehovah, drinking of Him as the fountain of living waters (Psa. 116:12-13).
For the Triune God to become our salvation, He was processed to become the life-giving Spirit as the living water, the water of life; now what we enjoy is God’s practical salvation, the processed Triune God as the living water (see 1 Cor. 15:45; John 7:37-39; Rev. 7:17; 21:6; 22:1, 17).
He went through a process to become a well of water of life, a fountain springing up and gushing up to reach us, flow into us, and flow out of us and with us all the way into the New Jerusalem!
This term, the springs of salvation, implies that salvation is the source, that is, the fountain; God as our salvation is the fountain (Isa. 12:2), Christ is the springs of salvation for our enjoyment and experience (John 14:4), and the Spirit is the flow of this salvation within us (John 7:38-39).
For us to enjoy salvation, we need to realize that the Lord Himself is our salvation, strength, and song, and that by calling on His name we may draw water with rejoicing out of the springs of salvation (Isa. 12:23)! Amen!
How do we draw water out of the springs of salvation?
There are many ways; we can repent in prayer before the Lord, we can call on the name of the Lord, we can sing, we can thank the Lord, we can praise Him, and we can make God’s saving deeds known (vv. 4-6).
May we have these divine and mystical habits of repenting, calling on the Lord, singing, thanking, praising, and making God’s saving deeds known.
As we contact the Lord in this way, we take God as the fountain of living waters; when the living water enters into us, it permeates us, it passes through our entire being, and it is assimilated by us (John 4:10, 14; Rom. 12:2; 8:29-30).
When we drink the Lord, the living water gets into us; He as the Spirit becomes the law of life within us to saturate us with the element of God.
As seen in Rom. 7-8, there is a spontaneous power in the divine life within us; when we drink of Him, this spontaneous power operates in us to infuse us with all that God is and saturate us with His elements.
As we call on His name and drink of the Lord practically, all things, all persons, all matters, all situations, and all environments work together for our good, for us to be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:28-29)! Hallelujah!
Praise the Lord, the way for us to receive God as our salvation is to draw water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation, that is, to drink of Him! Thank You, Lord, You are making us to drink from the rivers of Your pleasures! Thank You for being processed to become the life-giving Spirit, the water of life for us to drink. Now we can come to You to drink God’s practical salvation, the processed Triune God as the living water. Amen, Lord, we come to drink! We come to You, Lord, and we take You as the fountain of living waters so that we may be saturated and permeated with You for our transformation, conformation, and glorification!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Jeremiah, msgs. 1, 40 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations, week 2, The Kernel of the Book of Jeremiah.
- Hymns on this topic:
– I have come to the Fountain of Life, / A fountain that flows from above; / I have passed from the waters of strife / And come to the Elim of love; / I have drunk of the heavenly well, / In the depths of my being it springs. / No mortal can measure or tell / The gladness the Comforter brings. (Hymns #523)
– Drinking at the Fountain that never runs dry, / Drinking at the Fountain of life am I; / Finding joy and pleasure / In abounding measure, / I am drinking at the Fountain of life. (Hymns #322)
– Therefore with joy shall ye draw water / Out of the wells of salvation. / And in that day shall ye say, / Praise the Lord. / Call upon His name, / Declare His doings among the people, / Make mention that His name is exalted. / Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: / For great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee. (Hymns #1340)
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