You Have a River Within You

Hi, this is Dr. Ray getting ready for another episode of Self Talk. I'm so glad that you have decided to listen to this show. Uh, please be sure and go to our website, icmcollege.org/selftalk, and subscribe and rate the show, that really helps us a lot. This show, I want to talk about what Jesus was… mean, what did He mean when He said we have rivers of living water flowing within us? So this is powerful and I think it can change your life, so stay tuned for another show of Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self. Again, I'm so grateful for you. Thank you. God bless you.

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Okay, here we go, Dr. Ray Self. Let's pray first. Heavenly Father, I thank you for everyone listening to this show. I pray, Father, for your word, your truth, uh, that you would just anoint me to speak today and anoint the listeners of this to hear what you would have them to hear and know what you'd have them to know, Father. I give you praise and honor today, Father. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. Amen.

Well, I want to talk about several very important biblical principles that can impact your life in very powerful ways. The first principle I want to talk to you about was something that the apaul… the Apostle Paul said which I thought was uh, which is incredible. He said, “Do you not know…” this is in 1 Corinthians, um, 3:16, okay, “Do you not know you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells within you?” Amen. You are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells within you. Now, that's pretty amazing because you know, for centuries the Jews actually had a temple that was built on top of the Temple Mount, this huge structure, uh, very formal, elaborate structure. Of course, you, you read about that, you know, Solomon's Temple and uh, how… actually got destroyed in 70 AD. How you had the outer court, the inner court, and the holy of holies. All that was symbolic of Jesus who was yet to come. But when you are saved and baptized, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within your temple. 

So Paul is describing our bodies like a temple of God. Why can we be called a temple? Because the Holy Spirit dwells within us, especially after you're baptized with the Holy Spirit. So we are a place, a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. That's incredible. That is amazing. When you're a Believer, the Spirit of God dwells within you. That means you're not an ordinary person, you've been chosen, you've been uh, adopted as a joint heir with Jesus Christ. You have the power of God within you, you have the revelation of God within you, you have the, the love of God within you, you have the manifestation of the Lord, the Holy Spirit - of His gifts - all within you. It's an incredible privilege that we should never take lightly. And I think that's one reason we should always give praise and honor to our Lord. 

So then Jesus said something about this. Now, the first principle to understand is that you are a house where– your body is a house where the Holy Spirit lives. Now, you know, your flesh lives there, your mind, will, and emotions. But inside of all this, with all this is the Holy Spirit. Most of the time, our flesh, our mind, will, and emotions I think drowns out the Holy Spirit, which is sad. I think we've all been guilty of that. But Jesus said something that I thought was just, just fascinating. When He said in John 7:38, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” From his innermost being. That means from the depths of your heart, from the depths of your soul, rivers of living water will flow. Now, living water… of course, Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that, you know, He was water that when you drank of, you would never thirst again. This living water is referring to the Holy Spirit. And notice that he calls this living water, a river, a river flows, a river moves and it's very powerful. 

A river flows a certain direction and the Holy Spirit does the same thing. He flows a certain direction and what he wants to do is he wants to flow through you, flow into you, through you, and out of you. This flow of the river is the Holy Spirit manifesting, giving evidence of Himself, the Holy Spirit showing Himself through you. I think our part is to let it happen. I'll trust Him. Let the Holy Spirit flow through you. And sometimes that's tricky because we have so many thoughts, so many emotions, so much stuff going on in our mind and our body. But in the midst of all this, there is a living river of God that lives within all of us. And this river of God wants to flow through us. And a river flows a certain way, in a certain direction, and so does the Holy Spirit. By that, what that, I mean, there is a direction and a purpose of that– the– of the Holy Spirit. He's not stationary, He moves, He, He guides us. We want– He wants us to flow with the river. 

So we have a river within us that is flowing out of us and our job is to let the river flow and also not only let it flow, but go with that flow, go in the direction of the river that's residing within you. Now, this river - whenever there's a flow there can be an overflow, and an overflow in the case of the Holy Spirit is a really good thing. So we, you know what they say, we're, we're um, a river, not a pond. So a pond, the water just stays put all the time, but you– we're not, we're a river. So the Holy Spirit is moving through us and moving out of us continually. And how does that affect our life? Well, what happens is if we are in a situation where we need help, the flow of the Holy Spirit will give us that help. If we're around another person who needs healing or needs deliverance or, or needs to hear a prophetic word, the flow of the Holy Spirit within you can give this person that you have this divine appointment with what they need from the Holy Spirit. 

In other words, the Spirit of God wants to move through you and out of you, onto those around you, onto your circumstance, onto the- your co-workers, your family, and the many divine appointments that we have every day. And the river is not natural, it is supernatural. It's the Spirit of God that moves out of you. And you know, how does this look? What's this look like? Well, to me, it's when I'm around someone, and all of a sudden, I get this divine inspiration and I say something to them that is something I would not think of because remember in Isaiah, it's very clear that the Lord's thoughts are not our thoughts, His ways are not our ways. So I've learned over the years to pay attention to thoughts that are not mine, amen. And, and so all of us sudden, I'm around someone and I'll get this thought, this impression, this picture or some words for them that I would not think of and the river begins to flow through me and I'm able to minister to them. And this has happened to me countless times. Countless times. Just um, about oh, about a week and a half ago I was… I met a, a guy at an event, and um, all of a sudden, I'm just… I, I've only known the guy maybe two minutes, and all of a sudden, I felt the Lord said, you know, “This, this man is a, is a teacher and he's got, he's a got a pastor's heart and he wants to do missions but he's more of a teacher and a pastor and a church planter.” And I, I started getting this impression and I spoke it to him. I said, “You know, I feel like the Lord's telling me that you're, you're called to, to teach and to be a pastor and to plant churches.” And his, his eyes got really big, his countenance changed, he looked at me with this amazement. He goes, “Yes, yes, that's my heart, that's my heart. Thank you, thank you thank you.” 

So what I did is there, this little bit of river that flowed through me, it confirmed something in his life. So many times the river is a confirming river, talking to people, moving upon people, and confirming things that God's been trying to show them for years but perhaps they had some doubt about. As the river flows through us and we let this living water flow through us, our words change, our actions change, we start to, to live and walk more in the presence of God. There's an anointing upon us, there's a peace upon us, there's a power upon us, there's a love that flows through us. That is something that we could not do. You even begin to love the unlovable. You– that's one of my pet peeves is as Christians, we like to love people that we like but we don't love people we don't like, and that's that's unbiblical. We start to love the unlovable, we start to to care more and have more empathy and more compassion and more concern. And um, we don't just overlook people, we stop for people. 

You know, I know the river, I know the river is for you, it benefits you, but so much so, the Lord is uh, very unselfish– the Holy Spirit is very unselfish. And so the river, so many times has something to do with somebody else besides you. And the Lord wants you to let that river flow so you can touch them. Maybe it's a, maybe it's to pray healing over them and um, it's just amazing, just uh… 

Again, about two weeks ago I was at a very large gala in Florida. And I'm not going to give the name of the person, but the speaker the gala was a very, very famous, well-known person. And there's probably 4 or 500 people at this gala. And I'm sitting across the room and I felt very strongly I was supposed to pray and maybe give a prophetic word to this famous person. And I was nervous and I was restless, but it was like there was this river inside of me that wanted to come out and I was not going to be comfortable and I was not going to - by the way they served us this beautiful dinner - I was not going to be able to eat my food until I went and did what the river wanted to do. And so I could not get comfortable and I was trying to figure out, how am I going to go in front of this room of hundreds of people and pray for this very famous person? Well, I looked at my wife and I said, I, I, I, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but I've got to go do this. So I walked across the room in front of hundreds of people and I walked over to the table where this personality was sitting, and I looked at him and I said– I'm introduced myself and I said, “You know, I, I feel that the Lord wants me to pray for you. Would you mind if I do that?” And he looked at me and he said, “Well, absolutely!” I said, “Whsheew,” and he stood up in front of this whole room and I put my hands on him and I prayed for him and the Lord gave me a prophetic word and it was powerful and he thanked me deeply. And after I released this prophetic word, I went back to my chair and I began to cry. I don't know, it touched me. It touched me really, really hard. And the river flowed through me. 

You know, for this moment, it made me uncomfortable, it made me nervous, but it flowed. And you know… now that's a, that's a… maybe a, an extreme example, but it can flow through you for your children, for your spouse, for your boss, for your neighbors, for the person in line with you at Walmart. You know, we've got to let the river flow. You pay attention to these little Impressions, these nudges that you get, these, these little convictions that you get. Don't let your analytical, busy mind drown out the river. You know, it's like we want to dam up the river with our thoughts and our emotions and our business. Let the river flow, let the river come out of you and flow onto those around you. You're the temple of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit is active, He wants to do something through you, He wants to do something with you. Now, He also wants to bless you. He wants you to hear from God. He, He's God's voice talking to you, He's God's power working with you. He's God's direction for the problem you have in your life, He's God's direction for your marriage, He's God's direction for your finances, He's God's direction for your healing, He's God's direction for everything you need and those around you. 

So Jesus said, “...out of your innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” Living water. I think it's just an incredible statement. From our innermost being. I think our part in this promise from Jesus is just to cooperate with it. Let the river flow and be conscious of things that we may be doing that is stopping the flow of the river. And again, business, distractions, um, refusing to be still, ignoring those little nudges, the little convictions that we get within our heart, ignoring all that, that's putting a dam on the river. We got to let the river out, folks. You're the temple of the Holy Ghost and… the, the Holy Ghost, or the Holy Spirit depending on what background you come from, wants to do things through you. He wants to flow through you. “...from your innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” Why? Because you believe in Jesus and He has sent His Holy Spirit to live in you. The impact upon your life and those around you will– is amazing, it's powerful, it's things you can't even imagine. 

So what I want to tell you is you're a container for the river of God. Our job is not to stop the flow of the river but to let the river flow through us, through our words, through our actions, through our thoughts. Let His presence come out of you, let His presence manifest through you. It's our job as Christians, it's a commandment from God, and it has the answers. Let me tell you something. The Holy Spirit has the answers to everything. Every problem you have, every situation, every need for those around you. The Spirit of God is Not mystified and not stumped by these problems, He knows what He's doing. He has the answers if we do not ignore that river that's within us and keep it dammed up, amen. Open up the floodgates. Open up the floodgates and let the river flow. 

Heavenly Father, I thank you for everyone listening to this show today. And I think that's the word, open up Your floodgates and let the river flow through us, Father. Lord, forgive us for hindering the flow of the river. Father, forgive us for not paying attention to what the river of God wants to do and how the river wants to move with– through us, Father. I thank you that Jesus gave us an incredible promise that from our innermost being rivers of living water will flow. Lord, I ask you to touch everyone listening to this podcast. Let your anointing fall upon us. I ask for a fresh filling, I ask for fresh river water, fresh river water. Father, for those that are in agreement with me, we will do our best from this day forward to let the river flow through us so we can be a blessing to others and, and Be your vessel. A vessel that you will continually use. Lord Jesus, we praise you, we honor you, Lord. We just thank you so much, Father. And again, bless those that are hearing, bless those that uh, that will hear even in the future, Father. Lord, we give you praise that we have living water within us, Father. Thank you, Jesus, in your holy name. Amen, amen. All right. Folks, thank you so much. God bless you.

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All right, we did it. Episode 171. Thank you so much for being a part of this. You know, I do it for you, I do it for you. Be sure and check out all the resources we have. I've got a lot of good free stuff on our main website, our college website, icmcollege.org. There's free lessons, there's free downloads, all kinds of cool stuff. Be sure and also go to the website for the podcast. Again, if you will subscribe, give me a review, join our subscription list, that helps us a lot. It helps more– helps us reach more people with this message of hope. I thank you for being a part of this show. Uh, we're sponsored by the International College of Ministry. We are enrolling 24 hours a day, all day long. We flow– the river flows through the International College of Ministry. We– some people ask us, “When is your semester start?” I said, “We run 24 hours a day, we're recorded, it's playing anytime you want it to record.” So if God's called you to the ministry, it's time to get your degree, get your bachelor, your master’s, even your doctorate degree, amen. Love you guys. That's icmcollege.org. God bless you. Thank you so much for listening. I just pray this show has been a blessing to you. It's, it's, it's a privilege to do this every week. Thank you so much. God bless you.