Living Water

"On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. John 7:37-39 (NIV)

As we are set free and set apart for God's purpose, He wants these rivers of living water to flow through us to touch the lives of all those with whom we have contact. In her book, How the Holy Spirit Filled My Life, Bertha Smith says that most Christians are full of themselves and the Holy Spirit. This happens because some are not willing to give up their old, fleshly desires in order to let the Spirit fill them. But many today don't understand what the Bible says about being filled with the Spirit. In her book, she gives a word picture of what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit:
"Suppose you have a pitcher of coffee and want a pitcher of water. If you empty half the coffee and fill up the pitcher with water, what do you have? A pitcher filled with coffee and water. If you leave one sip of the black liquid in the pitcher, you still have a pitcher of coffee and water. Only when you empty out all the coffee and wash the pitcher can you have a pitcher full of clear water."