"...let the river flow through the temple gates..."
From the song, "Such a Day," by David Willersdorf
"Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing."
Ezekiel 47:12 (NIV)
Out of the temple of the Living God flows the River of Life. It is described as bringing life wherever it goes. Salt water becomes fresh, fish and creatures live in abundance and even the trees that line its banks flourish and give great harvests. The river flows from the sanctuary of the Temple of the Living God.
There is another river and another temple spoken of in God's Word. This temple is made in every man and woman that follows Christ, and is called the Temple of the Holy Spirit. A river flows from this temple also. It flows from the concentrated abundance of the temple out into the lives of others.
The river is the same - God flowing in life from the temple to the world. The temple can vary, however. Not all of us see a mighty outpouring of life from the temple of our hearts into the communities and worlds we are a part of.
Some of us build our own pipelines, hoping that we can influence others by our cleverness and goodness, and yet people still walk away from us thirsty and dissatisfied. Others of us are more like putrid dams than free-flowing rivers. And others are like a vague wetness coming from cobwebbed corridors - a temple long forgotten.
Imagine every Believer being a holy and revived temple of the Living God; surrendered to the heartbeat of God beating here on earth in us. No carefully laid pipelines of our own making; just a wild torrent pouring out unreservedly into the world. Our words would be secondary to our lives, full of life and fertility.