Wednesday, 20 October 2021

Collaborating with Jerry Miller 4

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I found this statement in Jerry Miller's notes ... "I believe God wants us thinking and dreaming in terms of revival, in terms of seeing the glory of the Lord cover the earth as the waters." And what better time to focus on revival than at the end of the harvest. "Glory come down." Sukkot is about being "at one" with God. We empty ourselves and join Him in the place He chooses, and He has chosen a Sukkah. Oh that we would live with this desire to see God's ultimate purpose to pour out His glory on the earth.

But (Why is there always a "but?"), when we do live with a vision and hope for revival, and we're praying and believing God for a major outpouring of His Spirit, there's a mentality we can develop that is not so helpful. We can lose sight of the reality of living water flowing through us right now. We're waiting and God is saying, "Now!"

Yeshua said that He wanted to give us living water, right now. But, if we're so focused on believing for the ultimate move of revival, we can lose sight of fact that there's living water that's in us. Living water that God wants to release to bring refreshing to us and blessing to others. There's a mindset we can get into that can hinder our experience of the living waters flowing in us now. Let's look a little deeper into it.

Read the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4:7-15. Yeshua approaches a Samaritan woman at a well, and they begin to talk. Here's a woman who's used to coming to this well day after day. Yeshua is using that reality to point to something about salvation that we can lose sight of if we are unaware.

Often, as believers, we're so accustomed to highlighting our particular need. We bring our petition before God. Many times, day after day, we're going to God, with the desire for Him to meet that need, our need. We tend to be so conscious of our need, and we just keep coming back to "the well." We keep coming back to God, to try to get from Him what we need. Don't miss this ... the simple truth that Yeshua brings to this woman, using a natural image of life that she could easily understand, is that it's possible to drink of "living water." And that "living water" becomes in us a fountain of life.

Think about it from the Samaritan woman's perspective. In her day, it wasn't like our modern convenience of today. Today we can turn the faucet and (effortlessly) water comes out. She had to go back to the well every day. Her survival depended on it. Now, think of what a difference it would have made to her if she could just dip her bucket in the well and be eternally sustained.

That's how different our lives can be when we live with the consciousness that there's a fountain of life within us. Today, when we have needs, or when we encounter the needs of others, we don't have to go over to some well and fill up a bucket. Based on what Yeshua tells us, the well is in us, the fountain of life is within us.

There can often be such a consciousness in people that God is in the heavens. He is, but the mentality is, "He's up there and we're down here." And as long as our thinking is that He's up there and we're down here, then we think the fountain we need is up there also. But remember, in Jacobs ladder dream the angels were "ascending and descending." They were ascending before they were descending. They were with Jacob initially. We think in terms of getting the water poured out from the well up there into our bucket down here so that we can be filled up, but that's backward or upside down.

2 Peter 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and virtue.

We don't necessarily think of being empty consciously, but we can live day by day as if that's what we believe. Many believers come week after week to services with empty buckets, looking to get them filled. We're looking for a touch from God, Who seems to be somewhere else other than in us. We think, "Lord, send down Your blessing."

We act as if the Lord is always over there, and I'm here stuck in my problems. Especially in times of trial or pressure, there's too little consciousness that the well is on the inside! What God has done in us is sufficient. Yeshua already said it and we quoted it earlier. John 7:38 Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture says, 'out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'

So instead, we express this prevailing mentality of need, lack and deficiency. So much of our thinking and praying and attitudes appears based on this whole way of thinking. We appear to be saying to the One who's up there, "Lord, I need to be filled up down here." We need to understand the implications of this kind of thinking. When we read New Covenant scriptures, we see that it shows us two types of men. Those who represent humanity (Adam represents fallen humanity), and Yeshua, Who represents redeemed humanity.

Adam represents spiritual poverty. In Adam, man is separated from God. Man needs life. And God gives life through Yeshua. Yeshua represents man joined to the fullness of the life of God as we read in John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

We must understand that Adam is no longer the basis for our sense of identity. Now, Yeshua is the One to whom we look. We draw our sense of identity and life itself from Him. Too often, even as believers, we still live unintentionally with an Adamic mentality. When we do that, we see ourselves as being separated from God. We feel the need for Him to come down from where He is, down to where we are.

Our New Covenant mentality must always be conscious of the presence of God, here and now, in our lives. We must realize that in every situation we are filled with the life of God, and we are here to give that life out to others. Paul refers to it as a mystery. Colossians 1:27b Messiah in you, the hope of glory!

The last 2 verses of Colossians 1 follow and that is where we will end today.

Colossians 1:28-29 We proclaim Him, warning and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present every person complete in Messiah. To this end I labor, striving with all His strength which is powerfully at work in me.

Receive and proclaim. Now go forth.