Dearest Friend and Pray-er,
I have a question for you to think about today: how much of God do you want?
Because you’re a pray-er, I can guess what your answer will be. No matter how much of the Lord’s presence and power is already manifesting in your life, you want to experience more. You want more of His wisdom and more of His joy, more of His strength and the manifestations of His Spirit.
I understand because I want more too. And the thrilling truth is this: every single day, you and I and every other believer can have what we want. We can have more…more…more of God!
Jesus assured us of it. In John 4:14, when He was ministering to the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar, He said:
Whoever takes a drink of the water that I will give him shall never, no never, be thirsty any more. But the water that I will give him shall become a spring of water welling up (flowing, bubbling) [continually] within him unto (into, for) eternal life. (John 4:14, Amp.).
Natural, earthly wells and springs of water might run dry. But the spiritual wells on the inside of us never do. They’re continually replenished by the river the book of Revelation talks about: “the river whose waters give life…flowing out from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rev. 22:1 Amp.). And since that river is “full of water” (Ps. 65:9), no matter how much we draw out, there is always more.
No wonder the Bible says, “With joy will you draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3 Amp.). Through Jesus, God has given His Spirit and all His blessings to us in an abundant, never-ending supply!
“But Lynne, if that’s true,” you might say, “why do so many Christians seem so dry these days? Why aren’t we all overflowing in every way with supernatural life?”
Look again at the verse from Isaiah and you’ll see the answer. It says we “draw” water from the wells of salvation. It doesn’t say we just acknowledge that the well exists, or that we open the Bible and read about it now and then, or that we come to church and listen to the preacher talk about it.
No, the Bible says that if we want to keep drinking in more and more of God’s living water, we must do what it takes to draw it out!
Drawing Out Living Water
The principle of drawing is so important that God has woven illustrations of it into His natural creation. Take gravity, for instance. It draws our physical bodies toward the earth so we don’t all go floating off into space. In a similar way, the magnetic draw of the North Pole pulls on compass needles so people can navigate and find their way. Here in Minnesota, we sometimes see the drawing effect of the sun’s warmth as it pulls water up from the surface of a lake so that it rises as a vapor into the atmosphere.
Clearly, even in nature, when one thing draws upon another, powerful and beautiful things can happen. But they don’t even compare to the marvels that can happen in the realm of the spirit.
When God moves on people’s hearts, for example, and draws them to Jesus, their lives can be changed forever. (See John 6:44.) My husband, Mac, experienced this in a profound and personal way when he was just 12 years old. He was attending a series of revival meetings at a Baptist church and after every service, when the preacher gave the altar call, he would go forward.
Night after night, he’d cry and give his heart to the Lord. He didn’t know you just have to do it once. So because he kept sensing the tug of the Spirit within him, he kept responding. Although it took years for him to realize it, God was pulling his heart not just toward salvation but toward ministry. Back then, being a pastor wasn’t anywhere in Mac’s future plans. But he eventually became a pastor anyway because God knows how to draw.
The question is, do we?
One woman in the Bible who could have answered “yes” to that question is the woman in Mark chapter 5. You probably remember her story. She’d suffered from a flow of blood for 12 years, and the doctors hadn’t been able to help. But when she heard the reports about Jesus:
…she came up behind Him in the throng and touched His garment. For she kept saying, If I only touch His garments, I shall be restored to health. And immediately her flow of blood was dried up at the source, and [suddenly] she felt in her body that she was healed of her [distressing] ailment. (Mark 5:27–29 Amp.)
Notice Jesus wasn’t laying hands on people and ministering healing when this lady latched onto His robe. He wasn’t even preaching. He was just walking through the crowd. People were physically pressing in on Him from every side, and He didn’t even know the woman with the flow of blood was among them.
Yet she got something from Him nobody else in the crowd was receiving. Without even asking His permission, she drew on the healing power of God that was on Him and got healed.
How did she do it? By faith!
Your Faith Will Make You Whole
That’s why Jesus said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you whole.” Faith always works this way. It’s like a mighty spiritual vacuum cleaner that pulls God’s power and provision out of the realm of the spirit. Faith doesn’t just wait around to see what happens. It’s not casual or just curious. It is intense and active. Faith presses into Jesus and expects to receive.
The sixth chapter of Mark tells us about multitudes of people who did this. They had such faith in Jesus’ healing power they ran around the countryside, collecting sick people on stretchers.
And wherever He came into villages or cities or the country, they would lay the sick in marketplaces and beg Him that they might touch even the fringe of His outer garment, and as many as touched Him were restored to health. (Mark 6:56 Amp.)
Imagine Jesus walking down the middle of a street with sick people piled up on both sides of Him for miles. As He passed by, it was like the splitting of the Red Sea! People sprung up off of stretchers. They threw crutches in the air. They rose up in waves—healed and perfectly whole—not because Jesus ministered to them personally but because they drew on His healing power with the touch of faith.
There Is More to Draw Out of the Wells of Salvation
Of course, healing isn’t the only thing we can draw out of the wells of salvation. A lot of other divine resources are in there too. Say you need direction for your life or divine counsel about what to do in a certain situation. All the wisdom you’ll ever need is available in abundance right there inside you, in the wellspring of your heart.
Your heart is where the Holy Spirit lives, and He is the ultimate counselor. He can provide you with perfect guidance all the time. But He won’t just pour it on you automatically like water out of a garden hose. You have to go after it. As Proverbs 20:5 says, “Counsel in the heart of man is like water in a deep well, but a man of understanding draws it out.”
The word translated understanding in that verse can also be defined as “esteem, honor, reverence, desire, or hunger.” When it comes to drawing on God, all those things are significant. The more we esteem, reverence, and hunger for Him, the more of Him we’ll receive.
A friend of mine, as a little girl, used to watch a lady in her church who understood this fact very well. An old-school Pentecostal, the woman reverenced and hungered for revelation from God so much that she would sit on the edge of her seat every Sunday while the pastor was preaching. Often, she’d even move her lips, silently mouthing the words of the sermon along with him as he spoke.
She didn’t do this because she was especially awed by the minister himself. She did it because she so deeply desired to hear the message the Holy Spirit wanted to convey to God’s people. And her desire helped draw that message out.
Evangelist Oral Roberts used to tell about a tent meeting in the 1950s during the great healing revival where an entire congregation expressed this kind of spiritual desire. He said they were so hungry for God to manifest Himself that they spontaneously started praying and worshiping the Lord. As they drew on God, His power swept through the place like a wind and within 45 seconds, thousands were healed. The next day, the tent grounds were strewn with so many abandoned wheelchairs, crutches, and neck, leg, and back braces that forklifts and dump trucks were needed to haul them all away.
There Is so Much More of God to Have
Oh, dear friend, there is so much more of God that we can have! But we won’t get it by just coming to church and behaving like spectators. Church services aren’t like concerts or plays. We aren’t there just to watch. We’re there to draw together on the throne of God, to release reverence toward Him, to honor and esteem Him, and to desire Him with all our hearts.
In other words, we’re there to worship.
It’s no coincidence that in John chapter 4, when Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman about the wells of living water, He also said this: “A time will come…indeed it is already here, when the true (genuine) worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth (reality); for the Father is seeking just such people as these as His worshipers” (v. 23 Amp.).
When we worship, we draw mightily on the living waters of God. We plug into the spiritual currents of His power. We unplug from our problems…and what’s happening at work and at home…and what our friends are doing and thinking…and plug into the Lord. We don’t just sing along with the worship leaders on the platform. We don’t just mindlessly say, “Praise God. Thank You, Jesus.” We think about all the marvelous things He’s done for us and lift our hearts to Him in gratitude and love.
When we do this individually by ourselves, we can experience increased degrees of God’s power and presence. But when we do it corporately, even greater miracles can happen. Together we can draw so much power from God’s throne that we’ll not only be blessed ourselves, we become like a mighty generator supplying God’s presence to entire cities and nations.
This is God’s plan, so let’s do it! Let’s press into Jesus with so much faith, desire, and worship that His power floods our lives, our families, our churches, and our communities with rivers of living water. Let’s draw out more, and more, and more of God!
My heart leaps with joy as I think of us all doing this together. I’m grateful beyond words for your partnership in the Lord. Until I write again, keep praying, keep drawing, and be sure to remember…
P.S. I have a special CD I want to give you today as a thank you for any gift you give. It is my message entitled, Drawing From the Well. You can give online here in the Prayer Fund designation or by calling toll-free 1-877-358-3327 and mentioning the Pastor Lynne letter and we’ll send one out to you.