Have you ever felt so excited about something that you couldn’t contain yourself? You just had to tell your friend, your neighbor, the person you met while walking down the street? This news you had was just too good to keep inside. It was like something that was bursting out of you that you couldn’t control!
The Joy that Jesus brings to my life is like that sometimes. Almost like a geyser, the Spirit bursts forth from me, usually in songs that I know, and that Joy comes out with it. It is literally energizing to have this happen, and spend the next several hours with music coming out in hums and whistles and fragments of song.
Jesus talks about this in the Gospel of John, chapter 7, verses 37 to 39: “On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.”
This “living water” that Jesus spoke of, the Holy Spirit, is obviously so much more than just a song. But His work in your spirit could be through tears and repentance, or through joy and song. And I know that one way in which He works (at least in me) is to bring back to my remembrance Scripture that I’ve learned in the past — or possibly a song. And regardless of how He chooses to work in me today, it gives me something I can use to water the thirsty land around me, if I choose to let it flow!
Denny Correll released an album in 1979, Standin’ In The Light. One of the tracks on that album, Living Water is a joyful song that explains what I’ve said above in different words. Enjoy!
I grew up in a shack by the railroad tracks
In the funky part of New Orleans
All the people would come from miles around
Just to hear my grandpa preach
They would line up in the streetsHe would shout, “Hallelujah!”, as he’d lift his hands
And tell them ’bout the glory train
With a tear in his eyes a Scripture he’d read
From the the Gospel in his hand
He had to make them understandHe’d say, Come ye, who are thirsty, come
Drink Living Water from the fountain of life
Come ye, who are thirsty, come
Drink Living Water from the fountain of lifeHe would say, “I was a sinner, just like you
Before the Lord set me free
By the Spirit of Truth my chains were loosed
From the Fountain of Truth you see
Now Living Water flows through me!”He’d say, Come ye, who are thirsty, come
Drink Living Water from the fountain of life
Come ye, who are thirsty, come
Drink Living Water from the fountain of lifeHe’d say, Come ye, who are thirsty, come
Drink Living Water from the fountain of life
Come ye, who are thirsty, come
Drink Living Water from the fountain of life
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