Living Out of the Overflow; Weber, Ch-3

CHAPTER THREE

Living Out of the Overflow

Charles V. Weber

The most common inquiry coming from the discussion about living out of the overflow is “how can I live it?” There is no doubt that “how” is an important word, and it ought to be repeated by a minister over and over as he prepares to preach. As I look back on my ministry, I can see that I spent much time telling people what they ought to do. I really didn’t help them much because they already knew what they ought to do.

What they really wanted was to be told how to do it. Telling people what they ought to do when they already know is like clubbing a person. It is a form of nagging. I want to put some techniques into your hands, which will show you how to live abundantly.

Frequently people tell how they have struggled to live victoriously. If trying should be the measure by which they lived, they would rate high, but they feel defeated and know that they don’t rate very far up the scale.

It will help us to remember that we never can succeed by struggle. We can’t lift ourselves by our bootstraps. Some people try. They see a higher level of life and they begin to struggle to lift themselves to that higher level.

Paul wrote, “God . . . hath quickened us together with Christ (by grace are ye saved) and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5-6, emphasis added). We do not raise ourselves; we are raised by the grace of God.

We must forget this idea of struggle in connection with religious experience. Some people have the idea that if they can do perfectly enough in time, they may become the children of God. This is putting the cart ahead of the horse. We become by the gift of God and not by doing. We do according to the nature of a Son of God. It all sums up to this: We must put action as the expression of Christian stewardship instead of a struggle to be God-like. We are not God-like because of struggle, but because of the divine gift of God.

For years I tried to be holy. I carefully watched every act of my life and struggled a great deal with my thoughts. I never experienced any lasting satisfaction from the results I obtained. I struggled and strained but usually sensed defeat. One day I realized that if I could be holy by the process of effort it would be a humanistic holiness. It would be my own righteousness, which, at the best, would be the filthy rags of self-righteousness.

Religion is not my own self-righteousness, but the righteousness of God in me. It is His gift to me. Holiness does not come out of effort, but through a divine endowment.

Instead of struggling and straining to be good, then, we should surrender and give up to God to receive His goodness. Surrender is the word that will lead us to abundance through God. Usually that is the hardest thing we have to do. The world lives by the rule of “preserve self” not “surrender self.” Automatically, people flee to save self whenever anything occurs to disturb the status quo and there is an instinctive basis for it. However, such a course of action leads to a false security and will cheat them of life.

Jesus spoke an important truth after He rebuked Peter for insisting that they would not let Him die. He said, “Thou savourest (understandeth) not the things that be of God, but those that be of men . . . If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:24-24, emphasis added).

Peter understood the way of men. It was to save self, so he quickly insisted the Master should save Himself. But Jesus knew the secret that brings life, and it was the way of God. The secret was the way of surrender. He that will “save his life shall lose it” and he that will “lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

It is hard for the worldly-minded to see this secret. It is too paradoxical to seem reasonable. It is foolish to believe the way to have a thing is to give it up. The whole world believes that to have a thing you must get it in your possession and hold on to it. They believe the way to get is to grab. But that is the worldly-minded idea of possession. It is false.

The only things which are really yours are those which will be yours forever. You may hold some things in your possession now or hold legal title to them, but some day you will relinquish them because they are not really yours. The things that are really yours are those that you give up.

For many years I used the Promise “Ask and it shall be given you” as the law by which to receive the things I desired. But now I have found a higher law of receiving. It is “give and it shall be given unto you.”

It is a purging law because when you give up a thing you are cleansed from selfishness. It is the law of the overflow because He said, “Give and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom” (Luke 6:38, emphasis added). You receive more than you give.

Despite the superficial conclusion of the worldly-minded, the way to abundant life is by the surrender of self and all of the things of life. “He that will lose his life for my sake shall find life.”

Jesus clearly teaches this, and we find it in the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” blessed are they that mourn” and “blessed are the meek” are three, which will illustrate what I mean.

The “poor in spirit” refers to those who have surrendered the material things of life. Stanley Jones suggests the “renounced in spirit” and another writer puts it in the “detached in spirit.” It doesn’t mean you have sold your home and business. You may have them in your possession, but you are detached from them.

You are not enslaved by them. Some people are slaves to their homes. Some are slaves to their business or their jobs. Jesus said those who have surrendered the material things to God are happy.

“They that mourn” does not refer to a sad faced religious experience as some have thought because Jesus teaches us that the Gospel is good news. It refers to those who are living for others--they that are carrying the burdens of others. They have a soul-burden that is a type of heavy foreboding.

The meek are those who are detached from self. They do not consider themselves very important. They no doubt have rights but they do not consider them important enough to make an issue be-cause of them. They have surrendered self.           

Jesus said those who surrendered things, self, and lived for others, would receive. What? “Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” They shall be comforted.” “They shall inherit the earth.” In other words, when we make a complete unconditional surrender to God we receive the realm above (Kingdom of Heaven) the realm within (comforted) and the realm without (inherit the earth.”)

The richest people on earth are not those who have the most money but those who have received this secret of life. “All things are yours . . .and ye are Christ’s and Christ is God’s (I Corinthians 3:21, 23).

When you are frustrated, beaten, discouraged, and hungry, you will find complete release in full surrender to God.

When you give up to God and all struggle ceases, the surrender makes you receptive for the gift of God. The first thing that comes then is a sense of relief, and the second thing is a feeling of wholeness.

Suddenly you feel an abundance as if a dam has gone out and the water is rushing over you. Usually in such an experience God becomes very real to you.

OBEDIENCE

Most everyone has had experiences of abundance when they realized wholeness, which they knew, was the gift of God. Then in their thinking they have wished that life could be like that all the time. Frequently, however, these experiences have been far apart and the gaps between have been filled with spiritual dryness and a feeling of inadequacy. The question is how can we narrow these gaps so abundant living can be a continuous experience in our lives.

I think obedience is the word that will help us on that point. When we surrender, the next step is obedience. The analogy of the vine and the branch in the fifteenth chapter of John indicates the fact that the nature of God will be in us if we “abide in Him.” He said, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love” (emphasis added).

We receive living water by surrender but we find a continuous stream of it by obedience. Our obedience to God keeps the stream flowing. If there were immediate obedience in every instance the flow would hardly be interrupted. Usually our lives are made up of one struggle after another over this matter of obedience.

There is a thing we need to do but it seems difficult so we seek a way of escape from it. After a prolonged period of struggling to escape, we see we cannot find a way out so we rather grudgingly surrender and obey. The trouble is the period of resistance served to choke the channel until even our obedience failed to renew our abundance.

Instant obedience to God becomes an important factor in living out of the overflow.

PRACTICING THE PRESENCE

The man who is conscious of the presence of God will always feel adequate. It is when we lose the “presence” that we are forced to fall back on human resources. Actually living out of the overflow means to live in God’s presence.

            Practice taking God with you wherever you go.

            Think of Him helping you decide every question.

            Thank Him for His help.

            Seek Him for guidance.       

            Turn to Him when you are tempted or weak.       

            Seek Him when you stumble or sin.

            Live as if God is your very breath of life.

           

If you will do this, you will be living out of the overflow. Life will be lifted to a higher level and you will find a marvelous victory. You can live abundantly. You can be victorious despite handicaps.

This is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

asking God to lift you to a higher level where you too can experience victorious living in spite of the handicaps. 

Religion is an Overflow

Chapter Two -- RELIGION IS AN OVERFLOW – Charles V. Weber

We will need to change our thought patterns from the form that religion is something we “get and keep” to religion is something we “receive and share” before we’ll learn the secret of living out of the overflow.

Of course, there is a process of cleansing and endowing, which must take place in our lives if we are to be partakers of the divine nature of God. I am not talking about an experience that takes place in the air and has no foundation. Abundant life comes from God and every fundamental event, which was necessary for its accessibility, must not be ignored.

Actually, two things happen to us in the divine process of redemption. We get rid of the man-made image of sin and we put on the image of God. It is a double-action process. One is a cleansing, purging experience; the other is a divine endowment or impartation.

I think you can see that before we can be filled with the fullness of God we must be cleansed of all impurity. Suppose you should ask me to bring you a glass of water and I hold up two glasses to you--one is clean and polished, the other is dirty with grease marks and debris in it. I say to you, “Which glass shall I put the water in?”

You would answer, "The clean glass of course.” When God fills us He will choose the cleansed vessel every time. The first action in the divine process is cleansing, the emptying out of everything which is foreign to God.

But cleansing is not enough. There must be an infilling. After we are cleansed, unless we invite the person of the Holy Spirit to possess our whole being we become subjects of deception. I think I can illustrate this from the teachings of Christ in Matthew 12:43-45.

            “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry

            places, seeking rest and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my

            house from whence I came  out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty,

            swept and  garnished. Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other

            spirits more wicked than himself and they enter in and dwell there; and

            the last state of that man is worse than the first”  (Emphasis added).

Here is the picture of a man who has quit his sin business and been converted. He doesn’t swear any more, he has left off his vices; he has broken loose from the old ties and associations, which ensnared him. But he doesn’t permit the full process of divine action to take place.

After a time the old spirit that has gone out of him comes back and finds him cleansed-but-empty so, he goes and gets other spirits. One spirit whispers in his ear like this: “You remember how extravagant you were in sin. You never considered the value of a dollar. You wasted your money for sinful things. Now that you’ve got religion you ought to be different. You should hold on to every dollar. Don’t spend any unless you have to.” So a covetous devil moves in and this fellow becomes miserly, covetous and stingy.

Then another spirit whispers in his ear and says; “you remember how it was when you were in sin how frivolous you were. You never had a serious moment. you joked and laughed and were always teasing. Now that you’ve got religion you ought to be different. You should be sober and serious. You should act very holy and religious.” So a self-pious devil moves in, and this fellow begins to feel very righteous, much holier even than all the rest.

Another spirit speaks to him and says: “You remember how it was when you were in sin. You patted everybody on the back and told them they were good fellows. You never saw anything wrong with anybody. Now that you’ve got religion you should be different. You should pick out the flaws and weaknesses of people. Find their weak spots. Look for everything that you thing ought to be different.”  A criticizing devil moves in and this fellow begins to criticize everybody.

Still another spirit whispers in his ear and says: “When you were in sin, not only did you insist that everybody was a good fellow, but you felt it was none of your business what other people did and it was not for you to judge. Since you’ve got religion you should be different. You should not only look for the flaws in people but you should tell them about them. So a judging devil moves in and this fellow feels he is in a position to decide the right and wrong of every issue. He becomes judge of his church.

One by one these spirits take up their abode within this man until seven other spirits, more wicked than the first, has come in. The scripture says the last state is worse than the first. Why? Because in the first state the man was a lost sinner and he knew it. Now he has a profession of religion, thinks he is more righteous than all the rest, but is deceived by all these unclean spirits.

It is much worse to be lost and not know it than to be lost and know it. In one, the sins are in the conscious and we know of them, but in the other the sins are in the unconscious and we do not acknowledge them because we are unaware of them.

Every person who is cleansed from his old sins but who is not filled with all the fullness of God becomes liable to deception. We need to be filled with all the fullness of God. We are going to be filled with something, either good or evil. “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh” (Luke 6:45, emphasis added).

This whole idea of religion is built around the experience of receiving the gift of God’s righteousness, which becomes a stream or spring flowing out of our lives. We are channels of the redemptive stream of God.

This channel must not be dammed or choked. If it is the stream stops flowing and we lose the freshness of religion. Out in the Great Utah Basin is the Great Salt Lake. For centuries the melting snows in the surrounding mountains have formed rivers which have plunged down the canyons into this basin to form the lake.

There is no outlet so the water has a strong concentrate of minerals, particularly salt. The minerals are picked up in the canyons and carried in solution by the water. Evaporation keeps removing the water, and the mineral content continues to increase. It is not a fresh water lake because there is no outlet.

We cannot continue to have an experience of abundant life if the channel is closed and we have no outlet. It takes the overflow to keep the current moving and fresh supplies coming in.

Homer Rodeheaver tells the story of a union prayer meeting that he attended in Kentucky. They were having a testimony meeting. A Holiness sister stood up to speak and told about her experience. She said, “Thirty-five years ago I was saved and sanctified and God filled my cup full and running over” and jumped and shouted praises to God. “Thank God through the years he has kept me, and tonight my cup‘s full and running over.”

When she sat down a good old Methodist brother stood up and said, “Thank the Lord, thirty years ago God saved me. And like it was with the sister my cup was full and ran over. I shouted praises to God. Since then sometimes my cup has been half full and sometimes it’s been empty and I’ve been backslidden, but thank God tonight my cup’s full.” And he sat down.

A Presbyterian brother stood up and said, “The Lord saved me thirty-five years ago and when he did he filled my cup two-thirds full. It’s been two-thirds full ever since and it’s two-thirds full tonight.” And he sat down.

An old backslider in the back of the building stood up, pulled a dollar bill out of his pocket and said, “I betcha a dollar bill that cup of yours has wiggle-tails in it.”

There is one thing sure if our religious experience doesn’t have an outlet it will soon lose its freshness and there will be creeping things in our life of which we’ll be ashamed. We won’t dare look inside. We need an overflowing experience to keep the freshness and radiance of God’s presence in our lives. Some people’s experience went stale on them twenty years ago. They are sour and critical! They are also unfruitful and unhappy.

THREE KINDS OF PROFESSORS

Out in Southern California near my home is found one of the largest oil fields in the world. This great cluster of wells and derricks is situated just south of Whittier and is known as the Sante Fe Oil Fields. They tell me there are three kinds of wells there.

In some instances they drilled down several thousand feet and didn’t find a trace of oil. They pulled their machinery, capped the casing, and moved on be-cause it was what they called a “dry hole.” In other instances they drilled down several hundred feet and struck sand, which contains oil, and by the installation of pumping machinery they pumped the oil to the surface from which it was piped to the storage tank.

In still other instances they drilled down until they struck shale or stone. When they broke through the thickness of it the pressure of gas and oil was so great that it gushed up to the surface and flood-ed the ground. It was another “gusher.”

I think these kinds of wells illustrate the kinds of professors of religion that we find in the world. There are those who profess to be Christians but there cannot be found a trace of the grace of God. Their lives are empty professions.

There are others who profess to be Christians and they have some of the grace of God in their lives, but it has to be primed and pumped to be seen. Then there are others who have found a “gusher” experience. They are living out of the overflow of God’s abundance.

I am convinced that abundant living is the kind of life God has planned for us. The scriptures bear this out. The twenty-third Psalm is a picture of the “overflow life.” The Lord is My Shepherd I shall not want,” is an expression which indicates God has satisfied our needs.

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures” indicates that the sheep ate until he was full and there was more green pasture left. “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemy’s” shows that the man of God prospers despite ill wishes of those who hate him. “My cup runneth over is a picture of overflow.”

Malachi gives us the picture also,       

             “Bring ye the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food

            in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith Jehovah of Hosts, if I will

            not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that 

            there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10, emphasis added).

The indication here is that we’ll receive a blessing that there shall not be enough

(room) to receive which simply means some will spill, over the top. There will be an overflow.

Then Jesus makes it plain when he said, “He that believeth on me as the scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water “ (John 7:38, emphasis added).

This clinches the fact. Flowing out of the heart of God and into the life of man is God’s stream of living water.

Man is the channel and the river of living water flows out to bless and bring life to others. We live out of the overflow.

We need the experience first of all for personal victory. The temptations, battles, problems of life are so great that the only way we can be sure of personal victory is through the grace of God. The way to face all of these difficulties is by the grace that God has so freely given us.’     

Actually Jesus met temptation through the power of the Holy Spirit. “And Jesus, being full of the Holy Spirit, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Luke 4:1, emphasis added). There you remember Satan tempted him.

After going through a series of tests he “returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.” The temptations could not choke the flow of power through the Spirit.

Most of us, after a series of trials like that, would murmur and complain about the terrible time we had been having. The reason is because we have not learned the secret of the overflow. Our lives are like cisterns that hold a certain measure and when that is gone we are stranded. Our lives are channels and the more we need the more we can have as long as we keep the stream flowing.

An old brother testified, saying, “I want religion like a Malley engine. A Malley engine can pull a long loaded freight train up a hard grade and still have enough steam left to blow its whistle. I want religion like that. I want to be able to go through the hardest trial and still have enough grace left after its over to shout “Praise God!”

That is what God plans to do for us. He wants to give us enough for victory and some to spare. Paul said, “That is, we have the grace to conquer but we have more grace than that. We have some to spare. The overflow life is needed for our personal victory. It guarantees sufficient grace for any need that arises.

But we need the overflow for an-other reason. It takes the overflow to win souls. Only that which we can spare will be a blessing to others. When we face a test we use a portion of God’s grace to conquer it. That portion will never do good to anyone else. It has benefited us and us alone. If that is all the grace we have we’ll never be able to help others.

It takes the overflow to provide a surplus to share with others. That is what living out of the overflow means. It means, ‘receiving the Grace of God and sharing with others.’ “Freely have ye received freely give.”

When Peter and John went to the temple to pray, they were stopped by a beggar and asked for alms. Peter didn’t have any money, but he was full of the Holy Ghost so he gave what he had and the man was made whole. Peter had an overflow.

The Malley engine that was mentioned before is a very heavy piece of machinery. I think it weighs over four hundred tons. It takes a lot of power to turn its own wheels and propel its own weight. Suppose it had steam capacity enough to move its own weight but no more.

If that were true, it wouldn’t be worth any more than its weight in scrap iron. But because it has a great surplus of power capacity, it is one of the important aids in the commerce and transportation facilities of our nation. It is the overflow that gives it value.

Religion is an overflow of the redemptive grace of God into our lives. But we must keep it flowing or we lose its benefit. Jesus speaks of going the second mile. Religion is the ability to go beyond that which is required. It is required that we live clean lives, and that we be exemplary in all our conduct. But Christ gives us grace to go beyond that. He helps us to love our enemies, pray for them who persecute us, and do good to them who despitefully treat us. That type of conduct becomes the strongest appeal of the Christian’s religious life.

God is calling us to live out of the overflow of the abundance of His love, grace, joy, and happiness. He is calling us to live an abundant life.

A STRANGE CONDITION

The surprising thing about the whole religious world is the strange absence of the abundant life. Individuals here and there have found the secret, but few groups are living it. Many churches are formal, cold, dry, lifeless, and loveless. Instead of being a place of warm nurture to develop radiant Christians who know how to live victorious lives, the average congregation is like a storage plant designed to keep life in the form of a traditional standard.

The cold. formal churches of today can neither produce nor develop life. It takes a warm incubator to produce growth and development of babies. A refrigerator is used to preserve dead things. It has to be cold to prevent them from spoiling.

This spiritual condition in the churches has cheated many fine people from living the way God planned for them to live. People have had the idea that religion is something you get and keep. They have put the most of their life into trying to keep their experience of religion. They think of it as something, which must be carefully guarded, or it may be lost. Their “grace of God” is measured out carefully lest they run out. Their religion is almost as bad as wartime rationing.

The prophet said He would turn into your hearts “the abundance of the sea.” The picture there is that of an unlimited supply coming like a roaring breaker against the beach. Most of us have lived as if we had to skimp or we would not get by. Actually, we have been just getting by and we have minimized the greatness of the grace of God.

A friend of mine, when he was a boy of twelve went with his family to the seashore in Southern California for the first time. He walked down to the water’s edge and looked across to Catalina Island. After a long minute he turned to his folks and said, “well, it’s pretty big, but it ain’t as big as I thought it was!”

A lot of us have thought of God’s grace like that. We know God is great. We know He has much power, but we are afraid it might run out before the end so we are very careful. The fact my friend overlooked was that a few miles across Catalina Island was some more of the Pacific Ocean.

You can go a thousand miles, another thousand, another thousand and another thousand and you will be getting near to the Hawaii Islands. Then you can go several thousand more and it is still ocean. The Pacific Ocean is much bigger than you might think. So is the love of God. It is an unlimited supply.

One of the sons in the story of the prodigals said, “You never gavest me a kid that I might make merry with my friends.’ A lot of our experiences are similar to this elder son. We have served the Lord many years, but we have never received the sense of son-ship. We have lived with less than God has planned for us. We have fretted against the feeling of frustration and the thought that we are being cheated of something.

We don’t need to be that way, and the answer of the Father to his son reveals why He said, “Son, - - - all that I have is thine.” He could have had a kid any time he wanted it. And we can have the fullness of God any time we want it. Through the abundance of God we can live out of the overflow.

This is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

thankful for the abundance of overflowing grace.

The Abundant life; Weber, Ch 1

This has of necessity become longer than a four-part blog. To avoid feeding 6800 words in one post, I am dividing Weber’s three chapters into the next three blogs, then add my final two, making six in total rather than four.

-PART ONE -

 THE ABUNDANT LIFE 

By 

-Charles V. Weber-

F O R E W A R D

A continuous stream of requests has come to me both verbally and written asking that I publish in book form the series of talks I’ve given on “Living Out of The Overflow.”

This series has been given about fifty times now in as many different churches. Each place the reaction has been the same.

Nothing would please me more than to comply with these requests and publish the full series. I have thought about it a good deal, but there is no possible way it can be done at present. My present schedule of activities is very heavy. Only through God’s goodness has strength been granted to carry on. Perhaps I should say it’s the “overflow” I’ve been telling about.

However, I am hoping to be able to prepare these talks in written form within the next two or three years. Until that time, I have prepared this small booklet with the thought that it may partially answer the requests, which have come.

Looking for the means of distributing it in the quickest manner and with the least effort I decided to send it out in place of the July and August issues of THE ABUNDANT LIFE.

The prayer I breathe as it goes into the hands of the readers is that these messages may acquaint them with the resources of abundant life and arouse them to live it.

--Charles V. Weber

Chapter One

  LIVING OUT OF THE OVERFLOW

There is something about this age that has the tendency toward setting up tensions in individuals. Perhaps it is the unconscious struggle of the idealistic within man against the evil and error of modern society that results in this tension. It is more likely to be the struggle between the conscious and unconscious within man causing a wasted energy and setting up destructive tensions.

Part of it is caused by the rush and hurry of these pressing times. Many who have become victims of these times allow a greater emptiness to grow through living which crowds out prayer, meditation, relaxation and religious reading.

At any rate, through one cause or another, we find a lot of people who are worn and tired from endless struggle and fruitless effort. If effort were the standard of judging, their rating would be excellent. But they know they have failed and many of them are discouraged with their failure.

There has been hidden from them the secret which will bring victory and the sense of abundance to their lives.

In fact, it was hidden from me for years. I was a Christian and I suppose a successful minister, but I was struggling. Gifted with a great deal of condemnation, I struggled until I faced the discouraging future with a broken body and considerable suffering.

It was not altogether my fault that I was living by struggle, because it is definitely the spirit of the age. In Bible College and in my home church, I was not taught about what God could do, but rather what man had to do. Like most young fellows, I formed habit patterns conforming to the molding influence of those days.

This age has been characterized by the trait of limiting God and giving surprising credit to man for what he can do. The struggle, which is so common today, is the direct result of that idea. When you minimize the work that God can do, and exalt the work that man must do, you cut off the help that God would give and leave man to struggle alone.

When my youngest boy was still too young to tie his own shoe laces; he got the idea that he should do it himself. He insisted we leave him alone and he would tie them. With great struggle and much grunting, he worked for perhaps ten minutes. Finally he gave up and asked me to do it for him.

The Father looks upon us with endless patience as we insist in doing things ourselves and in our own way. We struggle when it would be so easy for God, but He lets us struggle if we insist. What a different life it would be if we sought God’s help.

THE GIFT OF GOD

In John 4:10 Jesus said, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and He would have given thee living water” (emphasis added).

I realize there is a certain kind of effort necessary for the development of the personality and to make us responsible individuals. To refuse to make the effort in the proper place is a sign of indolence and weakness. It is important, however, that we clarify what that effort is and where it belongs, or we may find our energy wasted and failure as a result.

“If thou knewest the gift of God.” There is a gift from God. It does not come through struggle or expenditure of human effort. It is not a human attainment; it is the free gift of God, which He bestows upon us. (It is) The human essential is our hunger for it and our desire to receive it.

Paul says in Romans 6:23, “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (emphasis added). The Word says of Christ, that “In Him was life and the life was the light of men”; and Jesus said, “I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.”

There is no doubt but that the primary purpose for Christ’s coming into the world was to give life. All the other things, His sacrifice and death, His resurrection and His ascension, which were events in the ministry of Christ, had to be so that eternal life could be given to men. The GIFT OF GOD is eternal life.

MEN WANT LIFE

Most of the struggle that is a part of modern life is an attempt to realize a fuller life. There is a feeling that life is not what it was intended to be and a great effort is made to correct the trouble.

What man has struggled so hard to attain, but so frequently has failed to discover, is the same thing God wants to give as a free gift.

If you knew the gift of God you wouldn’t continue to be defeated, but would ask of Him and He would give you living water.

You notice that the gift of God, which is eternal life, is figuratively expressed as living water. The word living indicates the idea of a perpetual flow like a living spring or fountain. The gift of God is a stream flowing from the heart of God to the heart of man, and it is redemptive and creative.

The prophet speaking of the coming of Christ in Isaiah 60:5 says, “Thine heart shall fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee.” Also in Isaiah 35, he speaks of “streams in the desert.” This same idea of living water is shown in these prophecies. They teach that an inexhaustible supply of God’s grace is ours. God will turn into our lives the stream of His redemptive love.

The wonderful part is that it is given to us as a free gift without any effort on our part. Whatever our part may be is in what we do with the gift after we receive it.

This gift of God includes forgiveness for our sins, eternal life, strength for temptation, and the love of God. The supply is unlimited. Everyone can have as much as he needs. You can draw upon the source freely and need never live under the crush of defeat any more.

We cannot stop at this point though because God wants us to live with an overflow. Through the gift of God we receive freely and now there must be a release.

In Acts 2:38 it speaks about the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in John7:38-39 it says, “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.”)

The gift of God is the inflow of his unlimited resources as a stream of living water. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the releasing of those resources for service in the out-flow of rivers of living water. Man becomes the channel of God for His redemptive work.

Man’s task is not struggle for attainment, but it is surrender for creative expression. Life does not begin with man, it begins with God. It does not end with man; it flows out to bless the people and give them life. Man becomes the channel through which God blesses the world. That is living out of the overflow.

A life like that is happy, full and creative. It is so satisfying that the need for struggle seems to disappear. A man feels that God is expressing himself in him as he goes about his regular tasks. There is no need to worry. It is not hard to share because he merely shares what God has done for him.

When a person once experiences the abundant life, he is satisfied not to sit down and quit but to launch out and live. He finds it to be a life of thrill and adventure.

Every one of you can live out of the overflow and know for yourself what I say is the truth.

This is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com;

May you know God's overflowing presence for yourself . . . J

Life Beyond Discipline, A Look at Life in the Spirit (4 parts)

A few years ago I published a pamphlet I titled “LIFE BEYOND DISCIPLINE”, A LOOK AT LIFE IN THE SPIRIT, which I am reproducing here on four parts. Part One includes the following biographical sketch of Charles V. Weber and part two will be his public lecture on "The Abundant Life" that he delivered half a hundred times, usually in week-long revival services.

“THE ABUNDANT LIFE”

A Public Lecture Series

From the Public Ministry

of

Charles V. Weber,

10-29-1901/1-21-2004

Charles V. Weber was born in Edgar Springs, MO and died at his retirement home in Fallbrook, CA. In the year 1925, Charles became pastor of the Creswell, OR. Church of God. In the years that followed, Chares served Church of God congregations in Cottage Grove, OR, 1926-1927; Athens, OH, 1928-1930; Moundsville, WVA, 1920-1933; Oak Hill, WVA, 1933-1935; Detroit (Bethany), MI, 1944-1948; and San Diego, CA 1947-1960.

Weber did general evangelistic work from 1941-1944. He conducted a significant radio ministry throughout 1935-1944 called Echoes of the Abundant Life.

Called to serve the national church, Pastor Weber first participated as a member of the Board of Church Extension (1944-1947) and the Missionary Board (1944-1959). In 1948, Weber became associated with C. W. Hatch in the Anderson, IN World Service Office. He later succeeded Hatch and eventually became the first National Executive Secretary, serving full-time in that capacity from 1960-1971.

I was a brand new college freshman at Anderson College in 1945, the summer I heard Dr. Charles V. Weber deliver his week-long series “Living Out of the Overflow” at the Anderson South Meridian Church of God. A few years later, it became my privilege to join other pastors participating as voluntary “Dollar-a-Year” Day-men, a fund-raising effort Weber developed earlier and used quite successfully.

For thirteen years, Weber edited and published a widely-read magazine he called “The Abundant Life“ Somewhere in my pastoral journey, I obtained a copy of The Abundant Life (volume 16, number 7 & 8), which I have reproduced here with minor changes suggested by my grammar conscious spell-check.

Weber’s message proved helpful to this troubled young student and Charles V. Weber became a greatly respected name in the church, especially in my earlier years. His positive message was seldom far from view as my own life ripened with time. It is a message this troubled twenty-first century still needs to hear! Perhaps God can still use it to further influence a society in transition.

I have added two pieces on the ministry of the Holy Spirit that I trust will compliment Weber’s work. May blog readers find your lives more fully opened to God’s abundant grace and may you dispense it more freely.

Wayne M. Warner

BLOGS FOLLOWING WILL INCLUDE

                                            -Part One-

Living Out of the Overflow

 Charles V. Weber

-Part Two-

A Relational Faith

Wayne M. Warner

-Part Three-

The Work of the Holy Spirit

Wayne M. Warner

This is walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com; I hope you enjoy a positive walk with God’s living Spirit.