A River Lesson

"Jesus said, 'Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.'  By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive."  -John 7:38-39

Lilias Trotter wrote:  "And another river lesson has come with the words, 'His voice was as the sound of many waters.'  I have never noticed before how such a thing will check the voice of their torrent.  A rock, a bush, even water running will dull it from a thunder of power into a mere whisper where all the harmony of its multitude of tone is deadened and lost.  Oh, we want to live where not one of the undertones or overtones of His Voice is stifled or missed!"

A contemporary of Lilias's, Oswald Chambers, wrote a book about the Sermon on the Mount.  He said:  "Beware of placing our Lord's role as teacher ahead of His purpose as savior" because otherwise we will despair of ever living up to His standards.  Chambers goes on to say:  "But if--by being born again from above--we know Him first as savior, we know that He did not come only to teach us:  He came to make us what He teaches we should be."  It is by His Spirit we are enabled to live a righteous life.

This is why what Lilias has to say is so important.  We must be careful not to block out or muffle the Spirit's voice within us.  In a secular book I'm reading the author says we should "talk from our heart," where love resides, and not from our heads, where our fears reside.  When our hearts are filled with the Holy Spirit and we keep our hearts open, love will flow forth and the fear our minds want to interject into the situation will be stifled.

I am grateful that the love God placed in my heart when I received His Holy Spirit will not only fill me up with peace but will overflow to others if I do not let my mind fill me with fear.