Sunday 19th May

Lawrence Kirby shares a message titled, 
'Consumer or Provider? Living from Overflow'

John 7:37-39 NLT
"On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! 38 Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’” 39 (When he said “living water,” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.)"

Out of your belly can flow rivers of living water... In the ancient world, your central space that life flows from was called your belly. In today's language we call it your heart.

Rivers of living water can flow from us! 

We can live from a sense of overflow or from a sense of deficit. In overflow you give out to others, but from deficit you rely on other peoples overflow.

The call of every follower of Jesus is to be a source of life for others, not a consumer of life that others have brought into that space.

This is not just for us, but for the community around us

If you’re constantly in deficit it’s very hard to enjoy life. If we have overflow we can give love when it’s not deserved.
We need to build resilience in our hearts to handle the ups and downs of life.
We build this up by drinking of Jesus!
When we’re drained, we need to spend time with Abba Father to get filled and refreshed.

Are you a consumer or a provider? Sometimes we’re in both camps!

We can build things into our lives that allow us to be a giver.

Suffering can draw us to God’s love. Sometimes in Pentecostal theology, we try to exclude suffering from the Christian narrative. In reality, there are times when we are dry and thirsty and we need someone else to be our source, but if that’s us ALL the time… we need to seek help.

We can grow in our ability to resource ourselves so that we can live in abundance and overflow which is Jesus’ desire and what He bought for us.

The more we resource others, the more God flows into us. Things rot when we hold them to ourselves.

Some questions to consider in response are:

• Are you relying on someone else’s ______ ?
• Have you become dependent on other people for what you need?
• Do you live to fill yourself and meet your own needs, or do you live to fill and meet others’ needs?
• Where in your life are you living in deficit, lack or stingyness?
• Where in your life are you living in overflow?

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You can watch the full message below: