It's something that Jesus didn't just "say" quietly to the Twelve. He "stood and cried in a loud voice" that everyone attending that "last and greatest day of the Feast" could hear, a message that was bursting forth from His soul. And it was a quotation from the Song of Solomon that said what He wanted to say, which He dignified by calling "THE Scripture."
If you're thirsty, He said, "come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him" (John 7:37, 38; S. S. 4:15; NIV, KJV). This is not a mere profession of "accepting Christ" like you enroll in an insurance policy; this is a thirsty soul famishing of inward dryness eagerly drinking every drop of spiritual moisture in a clearer grasp of gospel truth than he has ever before understood. The dry "gospel" has become life itself. Thus "believing" is defined: it's not head knowledge, but the yearning in Jesus' soul now transplanted into your soul. You now actually love the Bible with the enthusiasm of your former worldly addictions--sports, dress, money, pleasure, appetite. You, poor little uneducated, untrained soul that you are, you have become a bubbling spring of fresh water of life. Everyone who rubs up against you in life is refreshed somehow by something you have said about "the truth of the gospel" (Gal. 2:5, 14). Your heart has become a treasure store of gospel truth. You have become one of those "144,000" whose passion is to "follow the Lamb wherever He goes" (Rev. 14:4).
This becomes a clearer definition of what it means to "believe." It's self-humbling; you want to pray that although "I believe," yet "help my unbelief" (Mark 9:24). You're hesitant now to boast of your so-called "faith." Like Moses, you're not even aware that your face is shining (cf. Ex. 34:29).
This is "evangelism" in God's design. It's ordinary people not necessarily "trained in literary institutions" who bubble over humbly with pure gospel truth that has satisfied their own soul thirst.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 17, 2006.
Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
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