by Timothy W. Burnett
The first chapter of Psalms uses the tree as follows, "And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of living waters, that brings fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not whither. And whatever he does shall prosper" (Psalms 1:3). Although this was talking about any person who did the will of God during the Old Testament days, the analogy is still applied to all of God's righteous saints during the period of time we live in now.
When we plant ourselves by the rivers of living waters we bear good fruit at the perfect time and whatever we do will succeed. This is such fantastic information that deserves more attention in our studies. What is the living waters? What is the good fruit? What are the benefits of bearing good fruit? These are all reasonable questions for us to ask God about. So let's dig into His word as found in the Bible.
While passing through a community called Samaria, Jesus approached asked a woman to give him some water. After she questioned him for talking to her, he said, "If you knew about the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, 'Give me something to drink,' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water" (John 4:10).
According to John 4:13 the living water would eventually come from him and would result in everlasting life. A word study of "living waters" leads us to Revelation 7:17 where it says, "For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters." The context of this verse is related to all of God's saints who will some day be in paradise which is also known as the new Jerusalem or new earth. These saints will include the 144,000 of Israel and inumerable saints who will not be of Israel.
There is another context for rivers of living waters as seen in John 7:38, "He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters." This is quite different from the live waters of Revelations. That of Revelations refers to people being lead to a fountain of living waters, whereas, the above reference in John is about living waters flow out of the seat of our hearts or "bellies."
The first record of people fulfilling Jesus' prophecy can be found in Acts 2:4, "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak other tongues as the spirit them the words." From this time on it became available for anybody to believe on the name of Jesus Christ being filled with holy spirit, and to start speaking in tongues. A closer study of Acts will show that many other people began to speak in tongues.
When people start speaking in tongues, the rivers of true living waters start flowing or gushing from within. What is the living waters? Based on a rightly dividing of God's word it must refer to God's holy spirit and his ever living and abiding word that flows from within the inner seat of our hearts while speaking in tongues. It is also the true fountain referred to in Revelations.
To understand what is the fruit of the spirit we need only turn to Galatians 5:22-23, "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law." In the earliest known texts, the above list did not include commas and the word "and" in between. This is significant in that lacking the word "and" the list had to be spoken and read without pauses between each one. In other words they were meant to be together as a whole.
Due to a lack of space we are unable to extensively cover each fruit of the spirit. But our readers are encouraged to dig into God's word concerning each one. Study the useage of each one throughout His word. The word "love" was the Greek word agape. We can use a helpful Bible study tool in Crosswalk.com for a word study on agape as used throughout the New Testament.
God in heaven is so gracious and merciful to help His people understand mentally and experientially what the fruit of the spirit means and how it bears in our lives. As we continue to put on God's word in our lives and to lovingly walk by His spirit that is in us through Jesus Christ, we will begin to bear good fruit in our lives at just the right time.
As we grow in the spiritual matters as described in 1Corinthians chapter 12 (and other areas), we will no doubt start to bear the good fruit that God promised.
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