A Different Perspective Official Podcast

When the going gets tough, it's so much easier to sort things out for ourselves – than to rely on God.  Really…..in fact, when we're hungry, why shouldn't we feed ourselves?
It's a funny thing that from time to time God leads us out into the wilderness and then, it seems, He leaves us there to fend for ourselves. When I think of Jesus out there for forty days in the wilderness without food, He must have been starving, literally. Forty days with nothing to eat, He would have been feeling dizzy and weak and completely vulnerable. All His natural support mechanisms and defences stripped away.
I mean, if that had been me I wonder whether I wouldn't have been sitting there after forty days thinking, "All right God, so You told me that you'd called me and you told me you had some bold plan to use me to change the world and you told me that I'm Your Son so, so why aren't You providing for me? Why have You thrown me out here into the desert to starve and the only person you've given me for company is the devil himself?" Imagine you're out there in the burning sun starving, what's the most logical thing for you to do?
I remember a time when I was training to be an officer in the Australian Army, it was four tough, hard years and on more than one occasion they took us out on survival exercises and we didn't eat for days and there we were carrying a heavy pack and a machine gun and ammunition and everything it seemed except for food. And they'd give us a map and a compass and they'd say, "Well we can't get food through to you here." So they'd give us a grid reference over the radio and we'd have to navigate 25 kilometres over hill and dale where there would be a food drop.
So over you go and you get there and there was no food and you'd radio in and they'd say, "Oh look sorry, the truck couldn't get through, we'll give you a new grid reference, 32 kilometres over hill and dale." And this went on for days. And then every now and then you'd get a food drop by a helicopter and they'd drop like half a ration pack for 4 men when you're supposed to have 1 each every day.
And we had no idea when it would end. We'd get grumpy and hungry and weak and our moral was pretty low, we'd sit there at night with our stomachs, well our stomachs had given up rumbling we were that hungry and we were a small squad of 4 men and we sat there and talked about these mongrels who were doing this to us and, "Let's walk out to the nearest highway and hitch a ride home."
I look back on that experience now and it was so hard back then but it built our characters. It's something that's hard to explain but when you go through something like that it teaches you things in a way that you don't forget. And the obvious temptation in the middle of all of that was to grumble and complain, to do something to provide for ourselves, to go out to the highway to hitch a ride home, to go and buy a pizza, you know.
And its exactly the same thing when the Lord puts us into a spiritual wilderness, the most tempting thing under the sun is to provide for ourselves, to seek provisions separate from God rather than relying on Him and so it's no surprise that when Jesus was led by God out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, the very first temptation of the devil is where he tried to hit Jesus in exactly that spot. Have a listen, Luke chapter 4 it comes from:
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them He was hungry and the devil said to Him, "If you're the Son of God tell this stone to become bread." And Jesus answered, "It is written, 'A man does not live by bread alone.
Douglas Webster in his book, "Under the Radar' writes this, he said:
The popular, easy to read books on leadership are of no value in the wilderness. They're not the kind of books you want to read when you're lonely and suffering. Titles like Developing the Leader within You or Leadership 101 or Success One Day at a Time, well they never make good reading out in the wilderness. Seminary degrees and graduate programs may help but they don't produce leaders. The best networking and mentoring in the world doesn't compare to the importance of the wilderness experience.
You see, what God was wanting to teach Jesus here in the desert was not self reliance, it wasn't ingenuity or innovation or imagination or invention. It wasn't the ability to forage on the land; it was none of those things. For forty days Jesus was famished, He was weak, vulnerable before the devil and the greatest temptation of all was for Jesus to meet His needs in His own strength. After all He was the Son of God, I mean He was entitled, I mean what the heck, why not? He was hungry, He was in need, He was the Son of God no one could deny that. In fact, that very first temptation, it probably didn't feel much like a temptation at all, it was purely and simply providing for His own needs.
In many respects this first temptation was a logical seduction, the temptation to meet our needs, even the most acute need of starvation, in our own strength rather than waiting on God. Wow, that's a strong temptation, to end the suffering because we can. It happens in our lives when we're in a situation perhaps a relationship and its hurting and we go and do something that we know isn't from God but we just want to end the suffering in our own strength.
Again, Doug Webster relates this story in his book when he was pastoring a Church and all the people in the Church were giving him a hard time and his temptation was to run away, to throw it in, to say, "That's it, I've had enough, I'm going to go and look for another Church." But he went to a man by the name of Eugene Peterson who's the man who translated the Bible into the translation called, "The Message" and Eugene Peterson gave him some godly advice that went something like this. He said:
As I've continued to think and pray I want to urge you not to be too eager to solve the problems and get rid of the suffering that is coming from the murmuring congregation and to believe that God knew what kind of congregation it was when He called you there and that perhaps the pain that they inflict is being used for God's purposes of Holiness in you.
See, when we are in the desert and we've been hungering for forty days we've got this acute need, this acute pain. What we want to do is to end the pain but God's view, God knows that:
… suffering produces endurance and the endurance produces character and the character produces a hope and its a hope that doesn't disappoint us because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that's been given to us.
That's what Paul writes in Romans chapter 5, verse 3.
God is teaching us not to rely on our own goods, not to rely on our own abilities, not to rely on other people, not to rely on the devil, not to rely on ourselves. God wants to teach us in that wilderness this wonderful lesson to learn to rely on Him so that when things get bad, when things get beyond us, when things are so much bigger and harder than we can ever imagine, we can think back to that wilderness and remember the last time God provided for us.
He never leaves us there longer than we have to be there, this is the wonderful hidden thing of God, that He wants us to learn to rely on Him and when we go out there and try and provide for ourselves that's the great temptation, the logical seduction of the devil himself.

If I were God – the last place I'd send my Son would be into a desert to be tempted by the devil.  But fortunately – I'm not God and it turns out that the wilderness was exactly where Jesus needed to be.
In this day and age success is something that we can see on the outside and by and large people mostly want to be successful. A bit like that time when Jesus was baptised and the heavens opened up and God spoke:
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
Now that didn't happen when I was baptised but if it had I would have known that I was on a fast track to success in the Kingdom of God. But what God did next with Jesus was to lead him out into the wilderness.
God does some odd things sometimes; at least that's how it feels when we look at it through our human eyes. He doesn't think the way we do, He doesn't behave the way we do and when we find ourselves out in that wilderness, that mismatch in expectations, means that often we just don't understand what He's up to.
That's because success in our eyes is an outward thing. You see it in the secular market place and, let me say, you often see it in Churches too. A guy called, Doug Webster in his book, "Under the Radar" puts it this way, he says:
For all practical purposes the fullness of the Spirit seems to mean realising your full potential, becoming the kind of person everyone else wants to follow, being someone who makes things happen, competing to win and being able to prove your success by numbers. Many popular Christian writers on leadership don't even bother to distinguish between worldly success and spiritual success because in their mind the two are virtually one and the same.
Today we're going to draw that distinction and it's a sharp distinction indeed. Here's the picture, Jesus gets baptised, we looked at this yesterday but we're going to have a quick look at it again today. He comes down to the Jordan River, it's flowing, it's full of life giving water, there's a crowd and have a look at what happens when He goes to be baptised, Matthew chapter 3 if you want to have a look, in verse 13:
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John. As soon as Jesus was baptised, He comes up out of the water and that very moment heaven was opened up and He saw the Spirit of God descending on Him like a dove and a voice from heaven said, 'This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased'.
That's an awesome thing, that's an incredible picture and throughout the whole Scripture there's nothing else like it, it's completely unique but what happens immediately following that, we can read it in Luke's gospel, his account, straight after this baptism, straight after this miraculous event, he goes:
Jesus full of the Holy Spirit returns from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them He was hungry.
Hungry, He must have been famished, He must have been starving. I mean I've gone without food for a few days and I tell you, you start getting dizzy and weak. The contrast between this spectacular baptism and the wilderness couldn't be more stark. The Jordan River with its crowds and Gods amazing deeds on the one hand and the desert, the wilderness on the other. It's so counter intuitive, it's so not what we would expect God to do but this wilderness for Jesus was an essential wilderness.
You see we expect success to follow success. We expect to go forward and up and up and up and up and up but Gods plan goes much deeper than that and if we were to discover the hidden things of God then the wilderness, the wilderness is essential.
Let's have a look at what happens to Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit. Now that's something we kind of equate with someone being charismatic and successful on the outside but He was filled with the Holy Spirit when He was baptised to equip Him for this time in the wilderness.
The crowds have gone, the audible voice of God is gone, the dove is gone, that lovely flowing river has gone and it's replaced by a desolate wilderness and the devil tempting Him and hunger and temptation and weakness and vulnerability and trial after trial.
Forty days without food, weak and needy, God takes a step back to prepare His Son. See Jesus learns obedience through what He suffers and look at who took Him out to the desert; it's easy to misread this passage. The devil? No. Look again:
Jesus full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert.
This was Gods idea, in fact in Marks account in Marks gospel; he puts it this way:
At once the Spirit threw Jesus out into the desert.
Literally, threw Him out there. In other words this wilderness was essential at the beginning of Jesus ministry; it was the sovereign choice of God to throw His Son out there in complete vulnerability. Into that deserted lonely place, deprived of the help and the protection of others, kind of like a sheep deserted by his shepherd, thrown out there by God Himself. Just Jesus out there on His own to be tempted by the devil.
You see, God wants to go so much deeper with us than some worldly veneer of success. He's not interested in our popularity, He's not interested in how successful we are at work or in ministry, He's not interested in other people patting us on the back. No, He has a hidden plan to forge our character, a character that will stand completely alone in the midst of that wilderness for Him. A character that will rely wholly on Him no matter what the world throws at us, a character that's forged in the furnace of the wilderness ready to be about God's business.
When we look for a leader, when we look for a disciple so often we are looking for people who are successful with a demonstrated track record who seem to have all the outward skills and appearances. How often do we ask about humility, endurance, suffering, prayer life, trials, character? These are the things that Gods interested in; these are the hidden things of God that He wants to forge in the furnace of that wilderness.
All the self help books out there describe a trajectory of success but the Bible doesn't, it marks our lives with the cross of Christ, sacrifice and suffering. Its Gods choice, Gods choice as Webster writes in his book is to forge us in the wilderness of solitude, not in ivory towers, not on dream teams but on the anvil of loneliness, abandonment and weakness.
You see Israel in the first century were looking for a messiah. They were occupied by the Romans, they were suffering but they weren't looking for Jesus, He didn't look like anything what they were looking for. Here some bedraggled guy, nothing much to look at who wanders out of the desert after forty days of being tempted. He's hungry, He's vulnerable, He's been tempted.
He's got none of the trappings of success, nothing to commend Him except this. That in that hidden place He withstood the devil, in that wilderness all alone, hungry and weak he relied on one thing and one thing alone, the fullness of the Spirit of God within Him to get Him through and then and only then was He ready to begin His journey to the cross. Then and only then did God release Him to bring the good news to the poor, to give sight to the blind and bind up the broken hearted.
That's exactly the same with us, the Lord leads us into the wilderness, that essential wilderness and then, then He seems to desert us, to leave us all alone except for this. That for each one of us who's placed their faith in Jesus Christ, He has left His Spirit in us, the Spirit who will sustain us, the Spirit who in our weakness and vulnerability will defeat Satan and in that place we discover the hidden things of God.

We like surface things, comfort, recognition…worldly success.  We just do.  But as Jesus discovered, as He starved in the wilderness – during those tough times….it's about something much deeper.
I wonder if I ask you to define success, exactly how would you go about doing it? I mean what does success mean to you? I know that for a long time success for me meant recognition, wealth. Whatever I chose to do, being the best and reaping the rewards and then when I had the rewards, spending them in ways that demonstrated that indeed I was successful.
Success meant achieving, being seen to achieve and in every way reaping the rewards and that's pretty much the way of the world. Everything the advertising industry does reinforces that image of success, it's a surface thing and by implication the things that constitute success, according to the world's rules, those outwards signs of success, they're supposed to make us happy on the inside. Well, at least that's the theory.
I read a book recently by Doug Webster and it's called, "Under the Radar". It's one of those short books that just blew me away. This week on the program we're going to unpack that a little bit to see what he has to say. He makes the point that some of the most successful leaders he knows are people who have achieved so much but they're people that you or I will never, never know.
In a sense they're men and women who followed Gods call on their lives and flew under the radar of public recognition into the hearts and the lives of men and women and children around them. And it challenges our worldly images of success. Inevitably these great leaders are people who have spent time in the wilderness, people who have struggled and been vulnerable and allowed God into their lives in the midst of that wilderness.
Webster challenges me with this statement:
We shouldn't be surprised that the Bible calls for leadership that the world doesn't recognise as leadership. We have trouble identifying the 'David' type leader whose character and leadership have been forged in the wilderness while caring for the sheep.
It makes you think. We're going to look at this week, Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus in the desert, being tempted by the devil. Here's the Son of God and He ends up in this dark and lonely place but just before we go there, I'd like to share with you what happened to Jesus immediately before He ends up in the wilderness being tempted by the devil and it's the story of His baptism, it's pretty spectacular story. Matthew in his gospel chapter 3, verse 13 puts it this way, he says:
Jesus came down from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John the Baptist but John tried to send Him away saying, 'Look I need to be baptised by you Lord and you come to me?' But Jesus replied, 'Come on, lets do it, its proper for us to do this and to fulfil all righteousness.'
So John consented. And as soon as Jesus was baptised He came up out of the water and at that very moment heaven was opened and He saw the spirit of God descending down on Him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, 'This, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased'.
Now I want you to think about that for a moment, is that success or what? I mean you go down to be baptised, you're coming up out of the water, the heavens open up, God speaks:
This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
This man is special, I tell you what, if I was in my baptism and that happened to me I'd be thinking, "Man I have arrived, I have made it, I am on a fast track to success in the Kingdom of God." Wouldn't you think the same?
And if we were standing there watching this, seeing Jesus come up out of the water and hearing that, God speak and the heavens open up and the spirit of God descend down on Jesus like a dove. We'd be saying, "now here's a man who's successful, here is a man worth following. This is exactly the sort of man I'd want to appoint as the head of my dynamic, fast growing, successful, contemporary Church. He's got all the outward trappings of success."
And you see that in so many Churches, again Webster writes:
Pastors and lay leaders alike judge success by worldly standards. The allure of great numbers and grand visions and expensive budgets and creative programming but it's only a matter of time before they become disillusioned with the experts and the consultants and the executives whom they've chosen to run their Church according to a competitive business model.
Has a bit of a ring of truth about it doesn't it? Because in Gods plan, well in Gods plan there's something more something much more, something deeper.
This baptism of Jesus going into the Jordan and being baptised by John, it signalled the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. You see, the first three decades of His life, He was an apprentice carpenter in His dads carpenter shop in Nazareth, making chairs I guess and coffins and doors and God wasn't in a hurry with Jesus but now, now Jesus is about to be launched into public life, into public ministry and He ends up with a stunning ministry.
We can read it in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, He heals people, He does amazing miracles, He does all sorts of things and ultimately He's crucified on the cross and rises again.
So this was a fitting ceremony, a great rite of passage, pretty showy stuff to launch Jesus in His public ministry and if you or I were God, my hunch is we would have said, "right He's ready, lets send Him out to the temple or the synagogue or lets go and do miracles. Let's get Him out there, let's get the recognition, let's get Him on the circuit. Maybe He should write a book or two and publish and have a radio program."
Surely from there, Jesus was on a fast track to success but look what happens next, immediately following that baptism. Luke's gospel says this, Luke chapter 4, verse 1:
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert where for forty days He was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them He was hungry.
Well some fast track, I mean Jesus had a wilderness experience ahead of Him; He got led into the desert. I mean I don't know if you've ever been in a desert, maybe you live near one. I mean Australia is 80% desert and what I know is when people get lost in a desert for a few days they can end up dying.
I mean it's a harsh, horrible place, extremes of temperature, hot during the day, freezing cold at night. If I was God I wouldn't have sent my Son there, I would have put him in somewhere comfortable and set him up for his ministry. Fortunately I'm not God.
Jesus had a wilderness experience starving, bedraggled, alone, vulnerable. In fact there couldn't be a starker contrast between His baptism in the Jordan, fresh flowing living water, all these crowds, the public shows up, God shows up. Compare that to the wilderness, this place of desolation, completely alone except for the devil. Some fast track, some, some plan God, what were you thinking? But this was Gods chosen way and we're going to look at that over the next few days on the program.
Jesus full of the Holy Spirit comes back from the Jordan and was led by the spirit into the desert. You see it wasn't the devil that took Him there, it was God that took Him there because God had a plan, God knew that Jesus needed to spend some time in that wilderness, vulnerable and weak being tempted by the devil before He would be ready for the ministry that God had planned for Him.

There are so many good things out there in life.  And it's great to get our fill.  But what's even better, is when we're so full of goodness – that we overflow – right into the lives of other people.
I love to see other people doing what God made them to do. Being who God made them to be. It's awesome when they excel at that. A brilliant musician or a sports person or someone who's great at caring for other people. Someone who can just lead an organisation, somehow make it sing.
It never ceases to amaze me how different we all are and how when someone discovers their unique gig, whatever that is, what a wondrous thing that is to behold. For me it leaves me in awe of God, His grace to let us have gifts like that. His imagination. His plan to bless each one of us through the gifts and the abilities of other people.
Sometimes we get all silly and we compare ourselves to other people and go, "Oh well, I can't do that." Of course we can't, it's not what God made us to do. He made us to be, well you and me. To be and to excel at whatever He's gifted us in our DNA. In fact it's a real passion of mine. To see people living out who God made them to be and the plan that He has for their lives.
And when we're right in that sweet spot there's just nothing better. That's why I enjoy doing what I'm doing right now. I'm custom made for this gig. A whole bunch of other things I can't do but I love, I love sharing the good news of Jesus with you.
This week we're looking at Jesus' ideal plan for our lives. A plan to use us as the entry point for His flood-tide of blessing into this world. Yesterday we looked at this passage, I want to look at it again today. It's John chapter 7, verse 37. And Jesus is talking at a time of a festival where they celebrate the enactment in a temple of the flowing of the Holy Spirit into the land. He says:
If anyone is thirsty (anyone, that means, you know that's for you and me right? This is an invitation) If anyone is thirsty (Are you thirsty?) then let them come to me (Says Jesus) and drink because whoever believes in me streams of living water will flow out from within them. By this He meant the Holy Spirit whom those who would believe in Him were later to receive.
This picture for the "anyone" and the "whoever", for you and for me, is for God to fill us to overflowing. When we're thirsty go to Jesus and we drink and we believe and then rivers of living water, His Spiritual blessing flows out of us. The Bible says literally:
From our bellies into the world around us rivers, a flood-tide of blessing.
You know near the delta of a river, when there's a flood all the wonderful silt goes out into the land and makes the land rich and fertile and things grow and they come to life. That's the picture. It's almost like we're a channel, an entry point for Gods blessing, a vessel used in His service.
When I look around at the people I know it never ceases to amaze me how different we all are. A friend of mine, Bob, who's a counsellor, he sits and listens to people and empathises and helps them think through and work through their problems. I couldn't do that. Another good friend of mine, Lawrie. He's a gentle man, he has a special ministry.
When Churches are going through hurts, sometimes when they go through splits or they sack their pastor or whatever went on, his ministry is to go and to be their pastor for the next few months or even the next few years and bring reconciliation and forgiveness and healing into that place. It's a really special ministry. I couldn't do that.
Another friend of mine, James, he's the baby boomer social director at our Church. He's always organising for us to get together or to go away for weekends and he ushers in a sense of community. He loves doing that, he's passionate about it. That's not me either.
The people I really admire, teachers. I spoke recently at a gathering of 300 high school teachers. Now those people, I reckon they deserve a medal. I mean I definitely couldn't do what they do. You know by now I could be tearing my hair out, I could be feeling really insecure. Wow, I can't do any of those things that those other people can do. What good am I?
Me, I just sit in a radio studio behind a microphone. How boring is that? But you know something, when I'm doing what God made me to do it's such an incredible joy.
It is your decision and my decision to draw close to Jesus and to get to know Him and to be filled by His Spirit. And when we're thirsty to go to Him for our spiritual nourishment, that's the inflow, it's an awesome thing. I was worshipping at Church recently and it was such a delight to sing praises and to bow down my life before God but if that's all I did with my faith it would get boring.
You fill up and you fill up and you fill up with God and you never spend any of that and you never let any of it flow out, I think we'd explode. You know where there's as much, in a sense, an even more delight for me? When I see those rivers of living water flow out from me from who He made me to be with my gifts and my limitations, from my belly and my heart, rivers of living water.
When I'm doing what He made me to do and that's exactly what I'm doing right now, I'm sharing Him with you, I love this. I get into a studio and I start doing this stuff and it's such an incredible joy. It doesn't mean I don't have challenges in my life. It doesn't mean that there aren't some days that are really, really hard or I'm tired or I'm sick. All of those things.
Those things happen in my life and they happen in your life. We all have pressures and tensions and there are conflicts some days. But I think we need both to be filled and to be fulfilled. The Holy Spirit in and rivers of living water out. On the one hand you see faith without works is dead. That's the in without the out.
If I were just to go and pray and to worship God and say, "God you're a wonderful God" but I never lived that out, that's dead. On the other hand works without faith, well they're dead works, they're hard work. We end up pedalling and pedalling and pedalling and doing this stuff and getting dry and burnt out.
But when we're receiving from God, the very Spirit of God, the very fullness of God. The joy, the knowledge, seeing His face, worshipping Him. When we're getting that from Him and then we step out of that quiet room and we just see how God uses our gifts and our abilities and our joy and He overflows through us into the lives of other people, that is such a sweet delight. It is such a joy. It is so fulfilling. And God uses you so differently to the way He uses me.
People often respond to these radio programs and they say what an impact they're having, what a difference they're making in their lives. And my response is it is such a joy, I love doing what I do and then the Holy Spirit just takes that and fills you with Himself through what I do so that a flood-tide of blessing, in turn, will go out from you to other people.
See that's God's economy and what you do and the things I couldn't possibly do, what you do is so special. It's so unique to you. So much part of God's plan for who He made you to be and what your life is going to be, the plan is simple. To fill us to overflowing so that we're full and satisfied and out of that abundance rivers of living water, the Spirit of God Himself, flows out day after day.
There are going to be stresses and strains along the way but as many hurts as there are He brings healing, He changes us and He moulds us to be even more perfect for His plan. And the hurts, well He knocks the rough edges off us and we just go back to Him, let His Spirit pour in and pour out through us.
And you know, when you're using His special gift, what He gave you, the ability He gave just to you that is such a sweet thing.

Ever been so thirsty you think you're going to die.  And then – then you have a deep drink of fresh, cool, clear, living water.  Awesome.  In fact Jesus talked a lot about water.
I remember when I was training to be an officer in the Australian Army. We used to go out on exercises for weeks at a time, war games and we'd be fighting this imaginary army and learning, I guess, how to fight a war. Back in those days the army was heavily into water rationing. Two water bottles per man per day perhaps.
And that was for shaving, washing, cleaning your teeth, cooking and drinking. So those hot summer months with all the physically heavy work that the battle entails, it was never enough. Many a time we'd finish an attack up a steep hill in the middle of the noon days sun or be digging a trench and all I wanted to do was to guzzle down a whole bottle of water.
Of course you couldn't do that and I'd close my eyes and I'd imagine that I was swimming in a nice cool river with stacks and stacks of water. When you're that thirsty what you really want is water in abundance. You want to be filled to overflowing.
This week on the program we're looking at what it means to be filled by God to overflowing. Not just half full, not just three quarters full, not just full to the brim but filled so that we overflow all His goodness and all His blessings and his Spirit. When we're really thirsty we have a deep longing to drink. It is such a satisfying thing when we drink.
I mean our need for water is one of the most basic of all needs. 70% of the human body is water and after oxygen water is our most important physical need. You can't go for very long without water. The body starts closing down some of it's functions and depending on your condition you can be dead in just a couple of days. Or if you're stuck in a hot car without water you can be dead in a few minutes in extreme heat.
It's interesting that when Jesus was talking about His plan for our lives He uses thirst and water to explain what He means. I think it's because it's something we can really relate to. He meets a woman, a Samaritan woman, at a well and He says to her:
Everyone who drinks out of this water will be thirsty again but those who drink the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give them will become in them a spring of water gushing up into eternal life.
See life gets thirsty and this week on the program we've been looking at what it means to be filled to overflowing 'cause that's Jesus plan. No ifs, no buts. "Oh well, that's not my experience'". Maybe not but its Jesus promise.
Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water I will give them will become in them a spring of water gushing up into eternal life.
I wonder sometimes whether in life we don't make things just a bit too complicated. For me, faith is a simple thing. I read what Jesus says. I hear what God has to say to me and then you say, "Well okay, if that's from God that's what I'm going to believe even if my circumstances are screaming at me saying that's never going to be possible. You're never going to have a fountain of spring water gushing up in you."
And every time my feelings or the things that are going on around me scream at me, "God's a liar, God's a liar, God's a liar". I'm just going to pick up that Book and go to that passage again and read what Jesus had to say again. I'm just going to believe in Him and not all these other things.
Now you might say to me, 'But Berni that's unrealistic. I've been trying to have a life of peace and joy and abundance. It seems like forever and it's just not happening for me'. Look at His promise again friend. Let's read it. John chapter 7, verse 37:
If anyone (not some special people). If anyone is thirsty let them come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me (not just the special spiritual people). Whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will flow from them. By this He meant the Spirit whom those who believed in Jesus were later to receive.
There are three parts to that promise. The first one is, "if you're thirsty get a drink". When life is dry and parched and empty, if anyone is thirsty. You know what anyone means? Anyone means anyone. Come to Jesus and He will fill us full of His water. A water that when we drink it, a living water, we'll never be thirsty again.
The second thing He says is, "and whoever believes in me". You see, it's a faith thing. When He says, "whoever believes in me" that word "in" means literally "into". So it says whoever believes into me. You may have heard me say this before. I can look at a chair in the distance and believe that it will hold me and I'm believing in it.
But if I want to believe into the chair I walk over and I sit down in the chair and I say, "you see, the chair can hold me". I've put my faith into the chair. My trust into the chair and so Jesus says, "whoever believes what I say, whoever reads what I said and says you know something, like a little child I'm going to believe and accept that from Jesus".
Whoever believes into me from their belly rivers of living water, not just a trickle, not just a steam, not just one river, rivers plural, get it? An abundance, a flood-tide of blessing of the Holy Spirit. Whoever believes into me from their belly rivers of living water will flow out.
The last few days of the program we've looked at some of the things that can stop that from happening, the blockage, our own rejection of God, the compromises, the sin, the devil in the spiritual realm robbing us of what God wants us to have. And you might say, "Berni, I think you're being unrealistic. Well I have problems and stresses and strains in my life."
Absolutely, Jesus promises those too. Look at how He trained His disciples. He promised them all those things and He never promised them that He would somehow lift us out of those difficulties and trials and exempt us from suffering. To the contrary, He promised the absolute opposite. He said:
In this world you will have tribulation.
But in the middle of all that He also promised that He would fill us to overflowing in this thirsty, parched, dry place. He would let us experience the incredible satisfaction of a deep drink of His Spiritual water of Him Himself. Now we might be spiritually or emotionally thirsty or parched or dry and Jesus says, "Come to me and I'll give you the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. I'll fill you with Him to overflowing."
And we're all different. We're all close to God in different ways. Some people do it by singing, other people like me get up early in the morning and pray. Other people love to read, other people find Jesus just most in the middle of life. And there are combinations and permutations of those things but the consistent message of Gods word is this.
When we draw close to Him, He draws close to us and that's a special thing and there is an incredible satisfaction of being, not just fulfilled full of Him but being filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit. He fills us in ways that nobody else, that nothing else can. The problem is so many people have been living so dry for so long they've accepted that as being normal. I mean so many spiritually dry people.
We think everyone else is like that. We can't imagine how God could ever fill us with His Spirit. How He could ever make a fountain of living water bubble out so that other people can come and meet Jesus and drink from that fountain 'cause that, my friend, is the normal Christian life.
Can I encourage you? Don't accept second best, don't accept a dry, parched land, don't accept anything else, don't settle for anything less than the fullness of God in your life. The very presence of Jesus through His Spirit in us. Thirst then wait to be filled by Him and just don't take anything less.