Creflo Dollar - Godly Living Obtained By The Power of God - Part 4
There is something going on in us, and it is by the Holy Spirit. So what I'm about to do is to take familiar Scriptures that we just kind of passed by 'cause we didn't understand how it worked. And I'm gonna show you how the work is going on in you. What's happening in you. The work that's happening in you. The innermost being of the believer, and what did God say about what's happening in you and what does it mean? You ready? Good journey.
John Chapter 7, and verse 37. John chapter 7, and verse 37. Let's look at it in the NLT. John 7:37 through 39. I'll read the whole thing and then we'll break it to pieces. We need to find out what all this stuff means. Verse 37 says, "On the last day the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds. 'Anyone who is thirsty,'" here's what he shouted. "Anyone who is thirsty may come to me"! And watch Jesus again. "Anyone who's thirsty may come to me". Next verse. "'Anyone who believes in me may come and drink!' For the Scripture declares, rivers of living water will flow from his heart. When he said 'living water,' he was speaking of the Spirit who would be given to everyone believing in him".
So the day you got born again, the day you started believing the Holy Spirit was given to you, "But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory". Now, let's break this down, verse 37. So once the Son of God would be back at the right hand of the Father, the Scripture says that the Spirit would be poured forth. Now, Jesus is speaking in verse 37 about how one can enter into that fullness. Now it's real, real simple. Watch this, it's subtle, but it's simple. He says, "If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink".
If anyone, in other words, if anyone has a spiritual need, bring that one to Jesus. If anybody's thirsty, come to me. If anybody's got a spiritual need, bring that to Jesus. Let him come to me and then let him drink. All right, so the obvious question is, how do you drink of Jesus Christ? Basically, the same way you would drink a glass of water. You come to a glass of physical water to do what? Quench physical thirst, and you take it believing that it will meet the need of quenching your physical thirst. I'm thirsty, go to the water, drink it believing it would satisfy the thirst.
So if we bring our spiritual thirst to Jesus, believing that he will meet the need, then that is drinking, I go to Jesus the need in water, drinking and thirst. I'm thirsty, go to water drink it. I believe it'll satisfy my thirst. I gotta need in my life. Go to Jesus, take the need to Jesus, he will meet the need. You believe that water satisfies the thirst, believe that Jesus will satisfy the need. That's exactly what this next verse says. He says if we believe that Jesus can quench the thirst in our lives, that is meet the needs in our lives. If we believe that Jesus can meet the needs in our life, like the glass of water can meet the need or quenching the thirsts in our life, or fulfilling the yearnings in our lives or the insufficiencies in our lives, then that is drinking of him by faith.
My question is, are you drinking from Jesus? A lot of people stop drinking from Jesus. They're now drinking from themselves or they're drinking from the systems the government set up, or they're drinking from what somebody else can do, or they're drinking from what money can give them. And Jesus says, "I am like water, I will satisfy your quench, I'll quench your thirst, I'll satisfied, but I just need you to drink of me. Will you pick up me like you do the glass of water and trust that I can satisfy and quench your thirst"?
If we keep doing that, if we characteristically do that, it is assumed that that will quench the thirst. And if you are thirsty, you come under Jesus and you drink. That's what we gotta start doing first. Got a knee, go to Jesus and drink. Don't go to the preacher, don't go to your rich uncle. Go to God. Have you picked up water and drink it? If you went to your mama's house and you said, "I'm thirsty". Your mom will say, "Get some water". "Well, no, I need some gin".
Now see, you want you want. You're not really thirsty. When you are thirsty, you'll drink water. I want you to be so thirsty, that no matter what condition you might be in, you can to go to Jesus because you know he will quench your thirst. Take the need to him. Take the need to him. We have created other options, other places where we take our needs. And is a sense of loss with him because he knows, "I have been put in place in your life for you to drink of me". And I guess I'm sad because we've been Christian, most of us for a long time and have never really understood what he was saying right here. We just thought it was a nice little sweet poetic way of putting the Scripture.
Now Jesus was literally saying, "Drink of me, I can satisfy your need". How many you believe right now? You don't need to raise your hand 'cause I don't wanna see 'cause you might forget that you can drink from Jesus and come try to drink from me, and I can't satisfy your thirst like Jesus can. You know, sometimes some people I don't... some people in different families and you head families up. Sometimes you feel like you are an opportunity, that people don't even look at you as a person anymore, they look at you as an opportunity.
I mean, when I talk to people, I have to ask myself, "Do you wanna talk to me as a person or do... or you wanna talk to me as an opportunity"? You thinking about that? Yeah, they don't care anything about drinking from you, they just, you're an opportunity. Lemme see if I can get this opportunity, that's a replacement for Jesus. And I'm not gonna do that. I need you. I need you, you can quench this thirst. And you know, sometimes a sip don't get it, sometimes a cup don't get it. You remember the little water fountains when we was in high school and we used to, you just sit up there and just... It's cold, good on a hot day, satisfying and quenching that thirst. Jesus is our thirst quencher. Oh my God, say that out loud. Jesus is my thirst quencher, he will meet all of my needs right now.
Now watch this, here's the point I wanna make. Beyond, it goes beyond that. He who believes in Christ or keeps believing that Christ can meet those needs. Now, remember what he says, out of his innermost being shall flow what? Rivers of living water. What does that mean? I don't know what I thought it meant. Honestly, I think I do. I think I thought it meant outta my belly shall flow rivers of living water. I thought it was like praying in tongues. And then when I prayed in tongues, I'm pulling water out. And I don't know, that may be cool, it may be all right, but I think more practically in context, this may work better. It's a picture of bringing our needs to the Lord in faith and then what happens is he gives to us a thirst-quenching drink of Holy Spirit.
And not only does he meet our needs, but he builds us up in living water so that we would overflow onto the lives of other people. In other words, as we drink of his water, he imparts water in me so that somebody else can drink from my water. Aah-ah. Listen, listen, "By consistently coming to Christ, he quenches and satisfies me with living water, and when I concentrate on him, he feels me till I overflow". So this is the best way I know of to minister to share with people. I wanna be full of living water. I wanna be full of the work of the Holy Spirit. I want Jesus to continue to pour water on the inside of me because there's gonna come a time where I am full and that water's gonna come outta me and like what he did with me, I'm gonna be able to pour it at you.
So now that you get the point here, well, that's what it means to be blessed to be a blessing. You can be blessed to be a blessing. How do I start getting blessed? I first of all start by trusting him and drinking water to meet my needs. Guess what happens? I go here trust him drink water to meet my needs. Go here trust him drink water to meet my needs. And guess what happens? Then somebody shows up. Whether they show up for an opportunity or not, they're showing up and you're gonna have plenty of water to flow on them whether it be through wisdom, whether it be through action, whatever it may be, you can now be a blessing to them.
God has called us to fit and to encounter one another. Yeah. This little thing about leave me alone, what we've been saying. "Leave me alone I'm gonna mind my own business". No, God's got this thing set up where your life is gonna encounter another life, encounter another life, but God's working in you to get you ready for that next encounter, to get them ready for their encounter, to get them ready for their encounter. We are blessed to be a blessing. You don't have spiritual gifts for yourself. Spiritual gifts that you possess is for somebody else. God didn't anoint you for you, God anointed you for somebody else. Your anointings are to be used for somebody else.
Some of you looking like... now hold on a minute. "Am I opportunity"? You'll know if you're an opportunity, but if you are, you'll be opportunity to do good. I can't meet everybody's need. People do what people want to do, but I got something in me that I can water and I can plant, but still God is the one that's gonna give the increase to make things happen. But if I've been blessed by God and I've been filled with this water, certainly I ought to have something to make a mark into somebody's life that cannot be erased. If all you're doing is walking around, getting fat, coming to church, taking notes, go home, starting getting fat again, praying Holy Ghost, getting fat again, then starting, and looking at some more anointing, getting fat again and you're not dispersing it, you are a distribution center.
You're not a storage house, you're not a warehouse, you are a distribution center. When was the last time you distributed any of that water to somebody else? So you see what we're doing? Yeah. I had to show you the first part of you getting this, but now that you get it. Let that now flow. Let that now flow out of your bellies, flowing rivers of living water. Rivers flowed in you, rivers ought to flow in the outside of you and living a life that's blessed so you can be a blessing.
Now, God will help you, he's in you. You will know a con artist when you encounter one. That's why you gotta talk to him. He'll let you know when to do something and when not to do something, he'll let you know. Now, if you do something that you shouldn't have done, that you should have been in better relationship with God. I mean, did you ask him? You were thirsty. You needed him to quench your thirst. "Lord, should I get involved with this"? He will let you know. He will let you know. Some people are hoping you don't consult God. They come and ask you something. "I don't know, I need to pray about it". "Daw! Why you got to pray about it? It ain't but a dollar". We're talking about living the godly life being assisted by Jesus. And living through him not just for him, but allowing him to operate through our lives, to make a mark in our lives that can never ever be a race. And I believe that God wants to cause a gushing to come out of you.
Now, this is important and I want you to get this now. It's clear then that godly living is not merely a suppression of the desires of the natural man. Now watch this. Go to Romans 7, verse 15, 18 and 19, because Paul describes here the struggle and the failure in life. Where self-effort, where there's an effort to kind of suppress the evil. Now, this is big, how do I deal with that? That the ungodliness that shows up in my life? Now watch this. Verse 15, "I don't really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate". Eighteen, "And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can't". Verse 19, "I want to do what is good, but I don't, I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway".
Can I get a witness? Oh no, ain't nobody. Ain't nobody like that. Somebody said, "That Scripture ain't talking about me". Uh-uh no. Yeah, it is talking about all of us. He's describing the struggle in the failure in life where an effort to suppress the evil is the controlling principle. So what was the answer to this? Is the answer suppressing it with your self-effort? Look at verse 24. Romans 7:24 and 25. "Oh, what a miserable person I am"! That makes you feel miserable, doesn't it? You wanna live right and you ain't doing it. You tried not to cuss out, but you cuss, and then you cussed her and said, "I blessed her out". I'm sure she didn't feel blessed. "Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death"?
That's the question. Who's gonna free me from this up and down life? Who's gonna free me? I want to do right, but I don't seem like I can ever make it to do right. And notice in verse 25, he gives the answer here. "Thank God the answer is," watch this. "In Jesus Christ". The answer is in Jesus Christ. "So you see how it is. In my mind, I really want to obey God's law, but because of my sinful nature, I am a slave to sin". Now let's keep reading, Romans chapter 8, verse 2 and 4, Romans chapter 8, verse 2, and then verse 4, he says, "And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death".
There again. How am I gonna get free from all this stuff? It's the power of the life-giving spirit. It's the Spirit of God in us through Jesus Christ that we find our freedom. Look at verse 4. He says, "He did this so that the just requirements of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead will follow the Spirit". How do you get out of that up and down of wanting to do right but always doing wrong? How do you get out of that? I'm gonna follow my spirit. I'm gonna follow, excuse me, the Holy Spirit. I'm gonna follow the Spirit of God and not my nature, not my feelings, not my emotions, not the norms and values of the world. I'm not gonna act like somebody else act.
Jesus, I need you. I need you to help me to control my emotions. I need you to help me to do right. I need you to help me not to live this double-minded type of life. I need you to free me from that sinful nature, which is mostly in your mind. The stuff you learned in your mind, the stuff you understood in your mind, that stuff that keeps coming up when you're confronted with doing right. I need you to free me from that. And I am telling you to live this godly life, you have to do it through Jesus Christ. It's a one thing to come in church and shout and do cartwheels and, you know, have church, but from this pulpit, we're trying to teach you how to have life. And you can learn how to do that. You can learn how to do that.
And then look at this in Galatians chapter 5:16. Let's go to Galatians 5:16, and Galatians 5:22, he says, verse 16, "So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves". Let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. You know, that's called yielding. Let the Holy Spirit guide your life yielding, just like you see the yield sign on the road. It means let that car go first and you follow. Okay? What does it mean in spiritually speaking? Let God go first and you follow. The Holy Spirit will guide your lives. The Holy Spirit will guide your lives. You know what we've done? We wanna replace the Holy Spirit with ourselves. The Holy Spirit will guide your lives.
It's a truth that I'm trying to scream out and it's just not gonna change until you understand. You cannot enter in the self-dependence and expect to live the life you wanna live, the Holy Spirit guides your life, then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. There's still some cravings that go on every now and then. The Holy Spirit help you to defeat it for the most part, but that's who you're trusting, you're trusting him. And every day it gets better and better and better 'cause all the devil wants to do is for you to yield to the crave so you can beat yourself up, walk in shame, walk in condemnation, and he don't want you to do that.
God did not come to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. God is not behind condemnation, God is not shaming you, God's not trying to make you feel guilty. The devil wants you to do that, but I tell you, the Holy Spirit will lead you out of that. And you can live a life that God wants you to live. Now look at this in verse 22 through 23. Galatians 5:22 through 23, he says, "But the Holy Spirit" the... who? But the Holy Spirit. Who? "But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives".
The Holy Spirit produces it. "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. There is no law against these things". The Holy Spirit does this. Notice that these things are the fruit of the spirit, not your fruit. It's the fruit that comes from the spirit. Fruit is not by a law that restricts or restrains. It is by the law of the spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus.