Go With The Flow part 3
It's the economy of the Kingdom: The river of living water flows out of us, even as we flow in the river of life. We live Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life by letting Him live it in and through and as us. Look at Revelation 22:1-2, "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. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves were for the healing of the nations." I love this passage because it speaks of the true paradise of God. Not the garden of Eden that had two trees--the Tree of Life AND the tree of death (the tree of knowledge of good and evil)--but only the tree of life. And the tree of life is fed by the river of life, in order to produce the fruit of the spirit. The fruit of the spirit is love. And there are twelve manner of fruit--twelve variations of love, if I can say it that way. Because love is the solution to every problem, but love can come in many forms. Love can be a hug. Or a shoulder to cry on. An ear to listen. A helping hand. Or, if I can quote Galatians 5:22-23, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no low." Here's what I'm saying though: joy is a type of love. Peace is a type of love. A tree can only produce one fruit, right? An apple tree can only produce apples. But there are lots of KINDS of apples. And then we look at the leaves of the tree. The leaves are for the healing of the nations. Leaves... which are connected to the branches. WE are the branches! We are the ones who can reach out with God's love--the love we have received though the Holy Spirit--and share what we have with those who are desperate for it. We partake of the fruit, and we share the fruit. We receive it and we release it. As it proceeds (or flows) out of the throne. Now the throne is interesting. I wrote a whole book about it (Six Steps to the Throne), but for our purposes today I want us to see that in the Old Covenant it was a judgment seat and now, because judgment was rendered at the cross, it is a mercy seat! LIFE flows from the throne. Because the life of God IS the judgment of God! Hebrews 9:27-28 tells us, "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." See, death isn't the judgment of God. Death came first. It was appointed unto men ONCE to die, and Jesus kept that appointment. THEN came the judgment, which was God the Father raising Jesus the Son back to life. That's where OUR life comes from. His life in us. ANd that's why it's not a struggle, but a flow. Everything comes from the finished work. Loving one another comes from being loved by God. The river flows out of the throne. And it heals the nations as we reach out to each other!