The Fountain of Life

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LL my springs are in Thee.” These words are easily said. But how much is comprehended in that single sentence! The life of each one of us is like a stream — whose waters are ever flowing without intermission, and glide by never to return. Every stream must have a source. To every river there is a spring. Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.” There we have the fountain — the heart — as well as the stream — the “issues of life.” The outgoings of a man’s heart are his life. Consider what these are. There is the stream of our thoughts. What a world there is in our thoughts! How ceaseless is the procession — how varied their character! Vain thoughts, impure thoughts, selfish covetous thoughts, malicious thoughts; and then there are holy thoughts, thoughts of ii8 Ce dTountatn of lift.

peace, of purity, and love. There is the stream of our words. These are sometimes foolish, unkind, untrue. Or they are the words of wisdom, of edification, of grace. And there is the stream of our actions. This is seen in the course we follow, the steps we take, the fruit we bear. By these we are to be known.

Now the character of the stream will depend upon the nature of the fountain. Let the spring be impure and the waters will be foul. The source of the evil seen in the life lies in the heart. “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders,” &c.

To purify the stream we must begin with the fountain. There are many sincere souls who are working hard at the wrong end. To try to cleanse the stream — the outward life — while the source — the heart — remains unrenewed and impure, is labour in vain.

But heart-work is Divine work. “I, the Lord, search the heart.” He alone really knows it. He alone can change it. He alone

can cleanse it. And so He says to you and to me, “My son, give Me thine heart.” And our prayer should be, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” To be able to say truly, “All my springs are in Thee’’ we must have Christ formed within (Gal. iv. 19). He is not the Spring of your life — that is of your thoughts, words and actions — unless He has full and unreserved possession of your heart. He must be where the stream of your life takes its rise, or the life that you now live will not be the Christ-life. There, in the centre of your being. He must live — “Christ liveth in me” — in order that all your springs may be in Him.

I may know Him as the fountain of living waters. I may have accepted His gracious invitation: “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink” (John vii. 37). That is, to have Him revealed to me as the source of all spiritual life. But I may still need to know Him as the “well of water” in me

“springing up into everlasting life” (John iv. 14).

In the first the spring is without — in the second the spring is within. And from this there follows the third stage of experience: the living waters flowing /rom us. “He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive” (John vii. 38, 39).

Is not this the secret of a real understanding of that marvellous passage: “Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ “? (2 Cor. x. 5).

If it is true that “all our springs are in Him,” then there will be perpetual freshness. They are “fresh springs.” No matter how barren and unfruitful the soil, how dark and trying the outward circumstances, we shall have a perennial source of refreshment, a hidden spring of living water welling up within, so that our “leaf shall be green” (Jer.

xvii. 8). There will be perpetual fruitfulness. We shall “not cease from yielding fruit.” It will be the fruit of the Spirit:’ We shall be “filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God (Phil. i. 1 1). It will not only be fruit but” much fruit “(John xv. 5 and 8). We shall learn how true it is that all real fruit comes from Him as the source —” From Me is thy fruit found (Hos. xiv. 8). There will be perpetual cleansing. The need is constant, but the supply will also be continual. Christ, in His indwelling Presence, has a purifying power. If He lives within as the Spring of our lives, those lives will be marvellously changed — they will be sanctified and cleansed from those sins and impurities that formerly polluted them. And there will be perpetual fulness. Those words in 2 Cor. xi. 8, will be brought home to our hearts with a deeper, fuller meaning. We shall daily be more and more amazed at the infinite provisions of grace which we have in Him.

“God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all-sufficiency in all things, may abound unto every good work.”

Why is the world so thirsty,

So restless, ill at ease,
So careworn with its pleasures,
So difficult to please?
Because the truth it cannot see,
That all “Fresh Springs” must be in Thee!

Why is Thy Church so weary?

Why does Thy cherished Bride Appear so sad and lonely, So far from “satisfied “? What once she knew, she fails to see. That all her “Fresh Springs” are in Thee!

Why needs she so much urging
To work, and love, and feel?
Why craves she fresh excitement,
To stimulate her zeal?
She cannot, or she will not, see
That all “Fresh Springs” must be in Thee!