(Yearly Cycle) A Pipeline of Living Water

In January it can often feel like time is moving really quickly. This is a reminder that God has given us the ability to speed up our results in life. A big key to accelerating results is becoming more and more efficient. 

There is the old story of a town that needs water and two guys take two different approaches to bring water to the town. The first guy grabs some buckets and runs down to the lake. He fills them up and carries them back. The second guy sits down and makes a plan to build a pipeline bringing the water to the town. After creating his plan he gets his friends to help him build the pipeline, and the town is forever grateful to him. The first guy worked a lot harder but the second guy got all the glory and probably put the first guy out of business because he used a more efficient way. 

God has placed an unlimited inexhaustible supply of everything we need already on the inside of us. This supply is a source of living water and it contains God's life, beauty, grace, power, love, kindness, goodness, energy, peace, patience, joy, beautiful solutions to problems we have and much more. This is not our peace or joy or energy this is God's. 

Jesus said that if we believe in him that out of our innermost being would flow rivers of living water. God has already created a pipeline for us to tap into this flow of living water and our lives our supposed to be like a fountain full of this living water. But pipelines often have valves and controls that regulate the flow. 

In preparation for this message I googled pipelines and found a number of things. All pipelines work to deliver resources over long distances but in the software engineering and financial world they talk about pipelines having stages or phases that are worked through. 

I think the pipeline for this living water that God has prepared for us has 4 stages or valves that we must go through to see the unhindered flow of living water. 

In Romans 8:30 it says that God has predestined, called, justified, and glorified us. In my experience these are 4 phases God takes us through to see the flow of this living water.

Phase 1 Predestined - 2 Timothy 1:9 says that we have been called to a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to God's purpose and grace given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. God already has this source of living water and the pipeline ready to go but he needs us to believe it is there. 

Phase 2 Called - We have been called to a holy calling, but we get to choose whether to answer the call or not. We answer the call by taking action and obeying what he has asks of us. As long as we procrastinate this valve stays closed. 

Phase 3 Justified - To be justified is a legal term. To be justified means that we will go through some trials and our faith will be tested. During these trials we will have the opportunity to prove that we trust in this source. When the trials come and we continue to rest and trust in this source rather than trying to force things to happen, solve our own problems, rely on ourselves, or effort our way to results I believe it is the final valve that releases the continual flow of this unlimited inexhaustible living water. 

Phase 4 Glorification - When all the valves are open there is a continual flow and supply of living water and it transforms our lives. Isaiah 58:11 says you shall be like a well watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. The beauty of this is that it leads to God being glorified because he was and is the source of all of it.