Is your mind filled with, positive, faith-filled thoughts? Are you overflowing with love-saturated, peace-producing emotions? Could you actually describe your daily flow of thinking as life-giving, joy-enhancing attitudes? If not, you may not be as ‘spirit-filled’ as you thought you were.

Speaking of the Spirit, Jesus said:

"Spirit" is an invisible element which is not readily discerned or easily described, so when we talk about ‘The Spirit’ do we really know what we are talking about?

Years ago, when I was first coming back out of a life of sin and rebellion, I ran across that scripture and had a strong reaction of frustration. I said something like this:

"God, what in the world are you really saying here? I’m tired of hearing all kinds of religious expressions I don’t really understand. I’m tired of ‘supposedly’ living in some kind of a mystical realm of the ‘Spirit’ and then experiencing all kinds of ‘hell’ in my everyday life. I need some understanding of all this ‘heavenly’ jargon so that I can experience some practical applications of it in my life."

I’ve prayed tons of prayers that I don’t think God answered. If He did, I wasn’t listening or maybe He put me on hold so long that I hung up on Him. But, this is one time when it seemed that He really came through for me. No, I didn’t hear a voice or see any lights. I didn’t get any goose bumps and I didn’t sense any mysterious ‘moving’ of the Spirit. It’s just that my own thoughts suddenly seemed to be coming up with an acceptable solution to my frustration. Here are some of the things that I began to think.

"What really flows out of our innermost being? Thoughts, emotions, attitudes and words. If there is a ‘river of life’ flowing out of us, then our words would have to be ‘life-giving’ words. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, so we would need to be filled with life-giving attitudes, thoughts and feelings. Hey! This is great! This is practical. This is something I can get my teeth into - something I can understand and accept."

I sat down and rearranged those words so that the first letter of each word would spell water. Here’s what I ended up with:

W - ords

R - eactions

In seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, I needed to let the King of the KingDOM - Jesus - have the DOM-INION and rule over my thoughts.

Godly thinking produces feelings and emotions which line up with the ‘fruit of the Holy Spirit’. If a person is filled with these God like thoughts and feelings, then His basic attitudes about himself and others would have to be a form of ‘life-giving’ attitudes.

Here was a practical way to ‘Live and walk in the Spirit’. In this way, if anyone poked my balloon I could come up with "Life-giving" reactions. I could love them, bless them, forgive them, pray for them and do good to them.

The river flowing out of me would not be the dirty, filthy, cesspool type of reactions which are a part of most people’s natural, automatic reactions. I wouldn’t have to react in fear, doubt, unbelief and scornful distrust. I wouldn’t be saddled with reactions of resentment, bitterness, accusations, anger and hate.

Believe me, it takes time, patience and much practice to be able to change your automatic reactions to life and people. But, it can be done, little by little!

From then on, I would examine my thoughts and ask: Are these life-giving thoughts? Most of the time, the answer was "NO! Absolutely Not".

I would also ask: "Are these the emotions of Christ? Are these feelings coming from the Holy Spirit? Are these attitudes really God’s attitudes toward people? Is this how He views the situation? Do my words really produce "Life" in those who hear them? Do I provoke others to anger instead of obeying the scripture which says: "Provoke one another to Love and good works."? Do my words calm people down and produce peace in their lives, or do I rile them up and bring confusion and chaos into their day?

One night I lay on my bed, crying intensely. I said something like this: "God, there’s no river of life flowing out of me. I’m an old rusty pipe that’s filled with mud and sludge. I’ve been out in the world where I’ve been corrupted by sin and wickedness. My thoughts are continually evil. I’m filled with negative emotions of all kinds. My attitudes are absolutely terrible and my words are polluted and unhealthy. "

While I prayed, I pictured myself as a faucet which could not produce a thing except muddy, rusty water. I knew the corrosion was deep and extensive. I didn’t think there was any hope of ever being cleaned up enough to be worthy to carry ‘drinking water’ to the thirsty. So, I just laid there and cried and cried for a couple of hours.

During the following months, I stayed by myself a lot and seldom went to church. I felt I didn’t deserve to be ‘among the people of God’. In my agony I begged God to work in me. I asked him to use the Roto-rooter of His Word and Spirit to ‘clean me out’ so that pure water could flow through me once again.

No, He didn’t do it overnight. In fact, it didn’t even seem like He had listened to me at all. I got so discouraged with myself in those days that I often wanted to give up. I wanted to die. I asked God to kill me and He wouldn’t even do that.

Eventually He did let the water of Holy Spirit gush through me. For two years, I was like a faucet which had been opened up and left to run, allowing the rust and mud and corrosion to flow harmlessly on the ground. I cried and cried, wondering if I would ever find a place of usefulness in the church again.

During that first two years, I was an angry, troubled and confused man. I often went to cafes and restaurants to smoke cigarettes, drink coffee and write. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I would sometimes sit at one booth, getting coffee refills for two hours or more.

What did I write? Well, in the world’s vernacular, "I spilled my guts on paper". My mind bled profusely with words of regret, remorse, frustration, and loneliness. Sometimes I would write sentimental love poetry. I wrote about lost love, unreachable love, and the need to be loved. On other days, I would get religious and preach on paper. I would rebuke hypocrites, comfort the grieving, encourage the downhearted, and teach the simple.

One night I had a dream. I was sitting at some kind of a little contraption and a friend walked up behind me and asked, "What are you doing?" I immediately replied,

When I awoke, I thought about the dream quite a bit, wondering what it meant. I knew that wine came from ‘the fruit of the vine’. Jesus claimed to be the "Vine", so I figured that I was someday going to take His Word and His Spirit into the church.

The Spirit of Jesus is the Spirit of Forgiveness. When He ‘took the cup’ at the last supper, He said, "This is my blood which was shed for many." I remembered the scripture which says: "The Life is in the blood." But, I also knew that the blood covenant doesn’t just speak of God’s forgiveness toward us, but it also requires us to measure out that same kind of forgiveness to others.

That message was the message that I was to take to the churches.

So, if the wine was the message of forgiveness and reconciliation - what was the beer?

I don’t know much about beer, but I felt that it represented an earthly concoction. It spoke to me of the water of earthly reasoning and understanding, mixed with worldly elements which turns it into an intoxicating beverage.

I knew that my writings were that kind of a mixture. Some of them were good and natural like water. But, the others were earthly, sensual and even devilish. It’s no wonder that God caused me to burn several boxes of my writings at a later date.

I had even written a 200 page manuscript of my life, thinking it would become a book. But, in those pages I had glamorized my sinful life and had taken time to describe the cunning craftiness with which I had carried out several illegal escapades. That, too, was cut in pieces and burned.

For the next seven years, the water of the Spirit flowed out of me in the form of prayers and intercessions for the lost and hurting people of the world.

I do not pretend that everything I write and say comes from a perfect flow of the Holy Spirit. All I know, is that what comes out of me now is a lot different than what was in me before.

The junk which used to flow from the ‘faucet of my heart’ is gone. I can still use a little extra purifying - but I know the Holy Spirit is using me to take a much needed message into the body of Christ. But, not me alone.

I am only one voice. I am one little drip in the pan. He wants hundreds and thousands of servants to be so filled with His Spirit, that they will meditate on life-giving thoughts, and be moved by life-giving feelings and desires and thus develop life-giving attitudes which will continually erupt in a flow of life-giving words to many!

For those who lack the opportunity and desire to speak publicly for Christ, He has reserved a ministry of intercession, whereby anyone can be used to pray life-giving prayers for people from every walk of life and in all parts of the earth.

The River of the Spirit will flow in answer to those prayers. Without leaving home, you will become responsible for the ‘seeds of life’ which will spring up all over the world.

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