THE RIVER OF GOD

Read: Psalm 46

No doubt we’re all aware of the importance of disregarding feelings and pressing on no matter how we feel…to keep doing the thing that needs to be done even when we don't “feel” the presence of God. If we're forever taking our spiritual pulse we end up so introverted that we're useless.

But what do you do when it's not just your feelings that are unsettled? What do you do when you wake up one morning and discover that down in your heart of hearts you've lost touch with God? You've lost your bearings. Now it's not a matter of disregarding your feelings and going on and doing what needs to be done. Because you don't even know what needs to be done.

When we have lost that inner sense of the presence of God there's only one thing to do: stop everything, and work on bringing that relationship with God himself back to where it needs to be.

In the letters to the seven churches in Revelation, every time the Lord has a complaint with any of those churches, it has to do with their relationship with Him.

- "You've lost your first love.

- You've compromised.

- You tolerate evil.

- Your works are no longer whole-hearted.

- You're lukewarm."

And in every case, the solution is to repent.

"Turn back to me...

Seek my face."

Normally we have thought of Psalm 46 as a psalm of protection. And it is. But the protection which the Spirit of God offers us as we read that psalm is not to make the sea stop roaring, or the mountains stop shaking. The protection which God offers us has nothing to do with the external dangers. God’s protection starts from within us, gives us something inside that will hold us firm "though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea." When I have that inner-certainty toward God,

when I have that inward peace,

when inwardly I know and commune with Jeshua my Messiah,

- then nothing can shake me.

As we read Psalm 46 we see a picture of a world that is falling apart ... everything's going to pieces, nothing's stable anymore. And in the middle of all this confusion there is a city which remains firm. Surrounding the city are nations with their armies moving in from every side. As they move toward the city, surrounding kingdoms are toppling like dominoes. Just when they get to the edge of the city, God, from within the city, speaks. The earth melts. The war is over.

What we see here is a picture of what is going to take place with the actual, physical, Jerusalem one day.. But we see more than that. We also see what is now beginning to happen to Zion, the church, in this hour. All around us things are beginning to fall apart. Not only is the sea roaring, (the sea has always been unstable.) But the mountains are beginning to shake, mountains which have always been a symbol of stability. Now they are turning to jelly and melting down. Everything is disintegrating. But while things are crumbling on all sides, God is doing a thing inside His people, the authentic Body of Christ, which will hold them no matter what takes place.

There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God,

The holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved.

God shall help her, and that right early.

What is that river? What else, but the Holy Spirit?. The Spirit of God coming down like the latter rain upon the earth.

- Lives are being transformed.

- Eyes are being opened.

- The gifts of the Spirit are coming forth afresh among the disciples of Jesus.

But, as the river of the Spirit of God flows in the midst of His people, it functions in a certain way. It's not just zapping people, knocking them cold, making them prophesy and speak in tongues. Rather, the river of the Holy Spirit is refreshing God's people on the earth with the one thing needful: the forgiveness of the Lamb.

If you've lost your sense of the presence of the living God it is because you have lost your vision of your own forgiveness.

- Somehow, you've forgotten where you came from, where you were brought from by God.

- You've forgotten what God has already done for you

- You've lost sight of how desperately you need God's forgiveness, day-by-day, hour-by-hour.

There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God...

And how do they make it glad? By conveying to them continuously that forgiveness, without which we are spiritually dead. This River is not just for the day you got saved. Nor is it just for that time when suddenly your sin is exposed and you’re embarrassed. This river flows day-after-day, moment-by-moment; because it is our only source of life.

Until the day when we're brought up into the fullness, the perfection of the nature of Jesus, that River of forgiveness is our continuous salvation. It means that God looks down on me and sees me struggling to be like His Son. I want to be of His nature, I want to be changed. So He accepts my bungling efforts and keeps giving me a new start. He lifts me up in His arms and strengthens me to walk the walk..

The cross of Jesus Christ, which is the fountainhead of this River, is not just for what I was five years ago, or last week, but right now. Daily we have to plunge into that River of Forgiveness. Daily God has to reach down with His hand and lift us up, and transform us, and change us, and make us new.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So long as we allow the River of God's forgiveness to flow down upon us, and in us, and through us, God is in us and we can't be shaken. Even if the world is falling apart around us, we won't be shaken because the war inside us is over. Your warfare is accomplished, your iniquity is pardoned, giving you eyes of hope to believe that the same God who ended the war in your own heart is also going to end the war on the outside.

Come, behold the works of the Lord,

What desolations he hath made in the earth.

He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth,

He breaketh the bow, he cutteth the spear in sunder,

He burneth the chariot in the fire.

Be still and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the heathen,

I will be exalted in the earth.

- How will He be exalted? ... by ending strife.

- By bringing the war to an end.

We know in the Spirit of God that the war out there is not ready to end yet. It's going to get worse. In fact, this land which has been fighting wars and causing wars in other places, will one day see wars in it's own streets. We keep watching on the news the turmoil in the Middle East. When that turmoil boils over we may well see suffering and anguish in our own cities that will break our hearts.

And yet, as the war outside us is heating up, the time has arrived for the people of Zion, to end their strife.

- Just as surely as the River of God is a river of forgiveness,

- So the City of God is a city of forgiveness.

- And you cannot be a citizen of that city unless you are a man or woman of forgiveness.

To be a man or woman of forgiveness has two sides.

It means that you're learning, constantly, to receive forgiveness from God.

And it means, secondly, that you're learning to forgive.

There are many of us who have not yet learned to receive forgiveness from God on a constant basis ... daily plunging into that river ... daily crying out for mercy... drinking of that river of the water of life. God help us to see our need!

If thou Lord shouldest mark iniquities, 0 Lord, who shall stand?

Enter not into judgment with thy servant,

For in thy sight shall no man living be justified.

When you get up in the morning don't just stand there in front of the mirror and compare yourself with all the crummy sinners. When you get up in the morning, plunge into that River of life which is forgiveness, and cry out for mercy.

Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning,

For in thee do I put my trust.... Teach me to do thy will,

For thou art my God and thy Spirit is good.

- Daily that's the basis of our life.

- And if we don't live in that River, we die... we go off on a thousand tangents into the darkness.

But after I have gone down into that River, afresh today, I come up and immediately begin showing forgiveness to those around me. What is the City of God, what is the church, but a school of forgiveness? It's not a club for nice people. It's not a gathering of elite.

The Church of Jesus Christ is a school of forgiveness, where we learn, daily and hourly, to show mercy to those around us. Maybe those sisters should have come to see you when you were sick. But what are you doing to yourself, and to the Body, by holding a grudge against them? And maybe that brother actually said those unkind things about you. But what are you doing to yourself, and to the Body, by nursing an attitude?

- So your sister-in-law is a hypocrite,

- And your mother made you wear long stockings when you were ten,

- And your teacher laughed at you in the third grade,

- And your best friend betrayed you when you were fifteen.

What are these things but opportunities to enter into the nature of God, which is mercy?

How in the world is the River of forgiveness going to flow in your home if you won't forgive? How's that river going to flow out through you to your children if you won't forgive?

I'm not advocating compromise with sin. Where there is a factious spirit, it has to be dealt with and where there is a rebellious, unforgiving, self-righteous spirit it has to be dealt with. But the instant there is the slightest spark of a desire for help, the slightest glimmer of repentance, we are to go out of our way to forgive. And where there is no repentance, where the offender remains hard as nails, I am still not justified in holding a grudge.

The proof that we are people of God is that we are learning, every day, by the Spirit's grace, to come down off our pedestals and forgive our husband, our wife, our child, our parent, our enemy, and even the person who's out to destroy us. How can the person who is out to destroy us succeed at destroying us if there is, in our heart, a spirit of forgiveness?

I praise God for the latter rain of the Holy Spirit that's falling upon the earth right now... for the fact that eyes are being opened...streams are flowing in the desert...lives are being refreshed ... the gifts of the Spirit are coming forth. But, may God help us to understand that this stream of life in the Holy Spirit is not a mystical force. The River of God is the Holy Spirit himself, who brings us the very nature of God, which is to forgive. This River comes to us to transform us into a people who are forgiving.

The Spirit of God comes to me to make us forgiving men and women.. If we will yield to Him, He will do it. If we say, “I want power. I want tongues. I want prophesy. But don't touch that grudge, that I choose keep,"...then we are coming close to the sin against the Holy Spirit for which Jesus said there is no forgiveness.

The Lord asks us two questions:

Will you let the Holy Spirit show you, afresh today, how much you’ve been forgiven?

Will you let the Holy Spirit bring you down from your pedestal and inspire you to forgive?

There is a river the streams whereof make glad the city of God....

That river is flowing as we read these words.

Are we allowing it to make us glad?