Crystal Clear Springs
Some things we read about can be totally unbelievable until we see them for ourselves. In Ohio, where I live, the rivers, creeks, and streams are very muddy. Even with no rain and on their clearest days it is impossible to see more than a foot below the surface. Therefore, when I heard about a small river, or a spring, that was so crystal clear that a person could see many feet to the bottom, I was rather skeptical. They told me that seeing was believing and at the spring was glass bottom boats. Sure enough, as we went on vacation we visited the spring and it was as crystal clear as described, and very beautiful, swarming with life. Silver Springs in Florida is an awesome experience. Spiritually, the rivers feeding our spirit can be so polluted and dirty that it is difficult to imagine the quality of a pure spirit being fed with crystal clear waters.
Where are the pure spirits that are fed with the pure crystal purity of the waters of life? They do exist, but these people are not those you find feeding their flesh with gluttony, alcohol, drugs, sexual lusts, and behavior that destroys the body. The pure springs flowing through them feed the spirit while diminishing the carnal desires of the flesh. Their Spirit is almost a tourist attraction for all to gawk at and be astonished by. They set themselves apart from the world. The muddy rivers of conflict with others and social disruption are filtered by the Spirit to create purity within their heart. Satan wants you to believe that such Holiness of spirit does not exist. That’s because the Holy Spirit that lives in us is a work of the shed blood of the Lamb on the Cross. Pride, self-worth, and personal ambition to display the pure Spirit fed by the waters of life does nothing to cleanse the muddy rivers feeding the flesh. Only when our identity is rooted in the Cross of Christ living in us will we experience the cleansing of the spirit.
“In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” “And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”
John 7:37-38 and Revelation 22:1