Compelling Love

“Living water” in the Bible is a prophetic picture of the Spirit of God being poured out upon or into a believer’s life.  For example, Psalm 1 compares a person who delights in the Lord’s instruction to a tree planted beside streams of water:

¹ How happy is the man
who does not follow the advice of the wicked
or take the path of sinners
or join a group of mockers!
² Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction,
and he meditates on it day and night.
³ He is like a tree planted beside streams of water
that bears its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

Psalm 46 describes a river whose streams delight the city of God:

 ⁴ There is a river— its streams delight the city of God, the holy dwelling place of the Most High. ⁵ God is within her; she will not be toppled. God will help her when the morning dawns.

In Isaiah 44, the Lord promises to pour water on the thirsty land and streams on dry ground, and to pour out His Spirit on the descendants of the righteous:

¹ “And now listen, Jacob My servant,
Israel whom I have chosen.
² This is the word of the Lord
your Maker who formed you from the womb;
He will help you:
Do not fear; Jacob is My servant;
I have chosen Jeshurun [poetic name for Israel].
³ For I will pour water on the thirsty land
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour out My Spirit on your descendants
and My blessing on your offspring.
⁴ They will sprout among the grass
like poplars by flowing streams.

In Jeremiah 2, the Lord laments that His people have abandoned Him, the fountain of living water, and have dug cisterns for themselves, choosing to worship idols rather than the true and living God.

¹³ For My people have committed a double evil:
They have abandoned Me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.

In John 4, Yeshua, Jesus, tells the woman at the well in Samaria that the living water he will give will become a well of water springing up within a person for eternal life.

 ⁹ “How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked Him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
¹⁰ Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.”
¹¹ “Sir,” said the woman, “You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do You get this ‘living water’? ¹² You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are You? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”
¹³ Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again.
¹⁴ But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again—ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.”

In John 7, Yeshua, Jesus, stands up at the climactic moment of the Feast of Tabernacles in the temple and cries out that the one who believes in him will experience streams of living water flowing from deep within (speaking of the Spirit that was soon to be poured out.)

³⁷ On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, he should come to Me and drink!
³⁸ The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.”
³⁹ He said this about the Spirit. Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit, for the Spirit had not yet been received because Jesus had not yet been glorified.

After Yeshua was glorified, the Spirit was poured out upon the believers on Shavuot, the day of Pentecost.  In Philippians 1, Shaul (also known as Paul), walking by the Spirit, describes how he lives every moment for the Messiah, fearlessly confident that after death he will be with the Lord:

²⁰ My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all boldness, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death.
²¹ For me, living is Christ and dying is gain.

In Ephesians 4, Shaul, Paul, encourages believers to grow into an ever deeper walk with the Messiah and to promote the spiritual growth of one another, being knit together in love like supporting ligaments in the body:

¹⁵ But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into Him who is the head—Christ. ¹⁶ From Him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.

Revelation 22 describes the river of living water flowing from the throne of God in the New Jerusalem, and those who have the right to the tree of life.  The Spirit and the bride renew Yeshua’s invitation for all who are thirsty to come and receive this gift of healing and eternal life.

 ¹  Then he showed me the river of living water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² down the middle of the broad street of the city. The tree of life was on both sides of the river, bearing 12 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations, ^3a and there will no longer be any curse.

¹⁴ “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.

¹⁷ Both the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” Anyone who hears should say, “Come!” And the one who is thirsty should come. Whoever desires should take the living water as a gift.

²⁰ He who testifies about these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.”
Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!
²¹ The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.

David Krause, dhkrause@neteze.com, https://compellinglove.net/, 8/4/2013

(Bible Quotations are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible.)