“But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” Jn. 4:14
“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” Jn. 7:38,39
Upward and outward. Did you catch it? The movement of God’s Spirit in our hearts is to produce “…water springing up…” and water flowing “out of his heart.” There is a supernaturally inbred restlessness within every believer which is wholly the result of being indwelt by the Holy Spirit. While we can grieve the Spirit, quench the Spirit, resist the Spirit, and generally neglect the Spirit; the two things we cannot do are shake free from His Person or completely put to bed His passion. Both our worship of Him upwards and our service for Him outwards completely rides on the coattails of His Spirit within us.
One of the reasons this truth of “God on the move” within us is so important is that it runs contrary to how so many view their Christian experience. I believe it is fair to say that many, if not most believers; see spiritual passion as something resting on their own shoulders. If we would just pray more, be more consistent with our devotions, deal more decisively with secret sins, surrender more fully, be more involved in ministry and sharing our faith; then we would experience greater zeal for the Lord. Our basic approach (often times unaware) is essentially this: as we faithfully respond to God’s calling on our lives, we get more of God’s invigoration in our hearts. In other words, obedience is what stirs the waters of God’s movement in our souls.
Maybe, just maybe, we have it all backwards. If I understand the New Covenant correctly, we not only receive divinely gifted purity at our conversion but also divinely gifted passion as well. "A new heart will I give you and a new Spirit will I put within you..." Ez. 36:26,27 Luther writes that when we trust Christ for salvation, “…we receive an inward fervency and light, whereby we are changed and become new creatures; whereby we also receive a new judgment, a new feeling, and a new moving. This change…is no work of reason, or of the power of man, but is the gift and operation of the Holy Ghost, who…brings forth in us spiritual motions.” I believe he is spot on.
Therefore, we step forward in godly responsiveness not so that the Father will invigorate His resources within us, but because His gifted invigoration of those resources is powerfully and unalterably already there. We don’t do godly acts to “get things moving”, but we do them because things are already moving. True obedience then is the abiding joy of tangibly releasing God’s restlessness in our souls. And this restlessness of God which inhabits every believer is the foundational energy for all true movement (upward or outward) in the Christian life. And if this isn’t good news, I don’t know what is.
Flashpoint: Divine passion is the birthright of every believer. True, spiritual obedience is simply the tangible releasing of God’s restlessness in our souls.
