Times of Refreshing

The Christian life has been ordained that we must walk and live with a frequent encounter with God. He is not an absentee Lord–He reveals himself regularly if we allow Him. We grow cold and stale if we neglect His fellowship. Neither is this fellowship one-sided. We open ourselves to Him and He in return opens Himself to us.

Isaiah spoke long ago of this refreshing. Enjoy his words spoken by the Holy Spirit. “For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people. To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear” (Isaiah 28:11-12). Apostle Paul was careful to document this prophecy as being fulfilled in the Pentecostal experience. “In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord” (1 Corinthians 14:21).

There is a spiritual hunger in our world–even in the church–for reality. A Jesus Christ that is only in our mind and our mental faith but that never touches the emotional side is inadequate to refresh the soul. It is beneath the New Testament to talk of faith and doctrine where there is no spiritual life.

Apostle Peter answered the rushing crowd that had witnessed the lame manÂ’s healing in Acts chapter two. “And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering” (Acts 3:11). Peter said to them, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19).

Jesus called this refreshing “rivers of living water.” Notice, He did not say river in the singular but rivers in the plural. “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 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: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)” (John 7:37-39).

I cannot live without this refreshing. My heart is set on “coming apart” and refreshing my soul in his bounty three times a day. There is no shortage in His supply. The early church shook the world because they stayed full of His life. You are an empty vessel when it comes to spiritual life. There is no source in your own person. You can hype yourself with cheap emotions but they play out after awhile.

He is life and He is life abundantly. Jesus said it plainly, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). The Son of God called this abundant life, His glory is us. It is a reflection of Himself and it is full of life above and beyond mere existence. “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me” (John 17:22-23). The glory of man at his best is still flesh. This glory is resurrection life and it is provided for every trusting soul to receive.