“The one believing into Me, as the Scripture said,
Out of his belly will flow rivers of living water.”
John 7:38 (LITV)
There is safety for those who allow the current of living water to flow out into the world around them. Wherever His life flows, there will be opposition and conflict, the world’s natural response to Light. Those who withdraw from the conflict become the prey of the enemy.
King David’s Fall
“In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.”
2 Samuel 11:1 (ESV)
“It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful.”
2 Samuel 11:2 (ESV)
Those who are becoming “kings” in Christ (Revelation 1:6), “go out to battle.” They do not shy away from the fight of faith; they do not sit in faithless inactivity. David was overcome by his own lust when he failed to remain engaged in the battles of the Lord.
For those occupied in His Will, the press of the Lord will keep them single in eye, pure in heart, and free from the lusts of this world.
Our Safeguard
“Occupy till I come.”
Luke 19:13 (KJV)
“He said therefore, “A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return. Calling ten of his servants, he gave them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Engage in business until I come.”
Luke 19:12-13 (ESV)
(Engage or occupy in the Greek – “to busy oneself” [Strongs] in the gifts given.)
“No one serving as a soldier entangles himself with the affairs of life,
that he may please Him who enlisted him.”
2 Timothy 2:4 (LSV)
Related Post: The Good Fight
The Safeguard
“There are two ways of defending a castle; one by shutting yourself up in it, and guarding every loop-hole; the other by making it an open centre of operations from which all the surrounding country may be subdued. Is not the last the truest safety? Jesus was never guarding Himself, but always invading the lives of others with His holiness. There never was such an open life as His; and yet the force with which His character and love flowed out upon the world kept back, more strongly than any granite wall of prudent caution could have done, the world from pressing in on Him. His life was like an open stream which keeps the sea from flowing up into it by the eager force with which it flows down into the sea.”
— Phillips Brooks
Are the waters of our life making inroads into the sphere of our influence, or are the lusts of this world bringing our hearts into bondage?
Flowing waters purify themselves;
static waters breed contamination and corruption.
“And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.”
Ezekiel 47:9 (ESV)
But the marshes:
“But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh;
they are to be left for salt.”
Ezekiel 47:11 (ESV)
The uninvolved and the stagnant, like Lot’s wife, become a “pillar of salt” as a testimony to the Lord’s judgments.
Brian Troxel
