If anyone thirst.....

Realizing the Holy Spirit is a Person, not a force or an energy, is the first step in welcoming Him into our lives.  Just like the rest of us, He will not come where He is not welcome, but once we make it clear that we want Him, He is eager to enter.  I once heard someone say that he had taken the Holy Spirit as the Senior Partner in the enterprise of his life and that he consulted the Spirit each morning on the day's activities.  What a wonderful concept!!! 

Paul says that if we are born of the Spirit, we should be led by the Spirit.  Here is the spiritual life in its simplest terms---to receive the Gift of God each morning to the point of overflowing strength, to let it spill over into the people you meet each day, to be hungry for more of the infinite Person who gives, and yet to be eternally satisfied with what He gives.

If God "so loved the world that He gave....," should not that same love enter us on a daily basis?  Knowing that we have the same spring of water in us helps us in our weakness:  we do not have to give of our own meager resources, but only from what we receive from the Spirit of God dwelling within us. One of the earliest Scripture passages I remember learning was this one, although I can no longer find the reference:

With joy, you will draw water from the well of salvation.

Many years ago, a dear friend prayed that God would give me joy.  How He has answered her prayer in the Gift of the Holy Spirit!  At first, I worried that somehow I would lose interest in the Gift and move on the other interests in my life, thus losing the energy, the peace, the joy that comes with knowing the Presence of God.  However, my doctor, who first prayed for me to receive the Spirit, told me this:  You don't have the Holy Spirit; He now has you, and He will not let go, even if you walk away from Him.

Now, 30 years later, I can testify to the total accuracy of that statement---the Holy Spirit has remained faithful to me even when I did not remain faithful to Him: He has never let me go or given up on me.  Jesus told the woman at the well, "If you knew the Gift of God, and the One speaking with you, you would ask of Him, and He would give you water springing up to eternal life."

Let none of us hesitate to ask for that living water that He promised to give....the Gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives.