John 4:13-14 “Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, (14) 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.”
From what we have seen in this section dealing with the believer’s first encounter with the Holy Spirit, it is clearly evident that in every respect, He blesses the life of the believer and not the lives (directly) of those around them. Obviously as the individual believer becomes more like Jesus, that has the collateral effect of blessing those around them by their changed lifestyles that reflect Christ in them. But nevertheless, the Holy Spirit is not manifesting Himself through these believers in order to directly bless those around them. Jesus used the above analogy in John’s gospel to describe the blessing of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer who has been born again. Our Lord Jesus likened the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer, to a fountain of living water residing on the inside of the believer. This fountain of water, which is an analogy for the Holy Spirit, is for the individual believer’s benefit, so that they may never thirst again. It is not however, a fountain of water that quenches the thirst of others around them. The truth of the Holy Spirit being a fountain of water in us springing up into everlasting life is very important for us to understand and live by, for because of that, Jesus said we would never thirst again. So why is this truth so important? As we look at further encounters in this series we will see that one of the motivations for believers to seek supernatural encounters is because they claim that they feel dry inside and need to be filled once again. That goes completely against what Jesus has taught us, for He never said that if we are thirsty (spiritually) that we need to go to another well to drink so that our thirst can be quenched. Rather we are to drink from the fountain of water that resides within each one of us. And so, believers that claim their spiritual lives are dry and are desperately seeking other sources to satisfy them, open themselves up to an enemy that will accommodate them with a supernatural experience that will ultimately deceive them.
Michael E.B. Maher
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