Part 5: The Development Of Water
Imagine a bare dirt parking lot and a lush garden sitting side by side.
The bare lot has the same dirt, the same sun and the same weather as the garden right next to it.
What separates them is water reaching roots over time. The garden has a source. The bare lot does not.
That is the difference between a Christian who is developing and one who is just existing.
In Part 1 we saw what the water is. In Part 2 we saw where the water is aimed. In Part 3 we saw how deep the water goes. In Part 4 we saw what the water does when it arrives. In this part, we need to see what the water develops after it arrives.
Deliverance is where the Christian life starts. Development is what comes next. God does not save you and leave you the same forever. He saves you and grows you into what He wants you to be.
What Ezekiel Saw
Ezekiel 47:7 “Now when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other.”
Ezekiel 47:12 “And by the river upon the bank thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months, because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine.”
* Trees.
* Many trees.
* Fruit trees.
* Trees whose leaves never fade.
* Trees that produce new fruit every month.
* Trees whose leaves heal.
That is what the water develops!
1. The Water Grows Trees On Both Sides
Ezekiel 47:7 “very many trees on the one side and on the other.”
Everywhere the river went, trees grew on both banks.
When Jesus saves you, He does not just develop one part of your life. He develops both sides!
Your work life and your home life, public life and your private life, Sundays and your Mondays. The river reaches all of it and where the river reaches, trees grow.
The river grows trees on both sides.
2. The Water Grows Fruit That Feeds And Wins Souls
Ezekiel 47:12 “shall grow all trees for meat… and the fruit thereof shall be for meat.”
“The fruit is for meat” is Old English for food. The trees the river feed people! They are useful for survival and enjoyment.
Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
That fruit is food for hungry souls:
* Your love feeds the unloved.
* Your joy feeds the brokenhearted.
* Your longsuffering feeds the impatient.
* Your kindness feeds the harsh.
* Your gentleness feeds the wounded.
* Your peace feeds the anxious.
But there is a higher fruit than that.
Proverbs 11:30 “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.”
The highest fruit a developed Christian produces is a tree of life to someone else; winning a lost soul to Christ, and disciplining them to the point where they reach others who do the same.
That is what wisdom looks like in the Bible.
A Christian whose fruit has never fed a hungry soul or won a lost one needs to check what water they are drinking from. Because the water from the sanctuary produces fruit that does both!
3. The Water Grows Fruit Every Month, Not Once A Year
Ezekiel 47:12 “it shall bring forth new fruit according to his months.”
Regular fruit trees produce once a year. These produce every month. Twelve harvests a year.
Why?
Ezekiel 47:12 “because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary.”
The source explains the yield. Trees drinking from ordinary water produce ordinary results. Trees drinking from the sanctuary river produce extraordinary results.
If your Christian life has one fruitful season a year and eleven months of dormancy, check your source!
John 15:5 “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”
A Christian drinking from Christ produces consistently. Month after month, and season after season. Good times and bad times, they are producing fruit. Their roots are drinking from the right well!
Fruit is a source problem, not an effort problem.
4. The Water Grows Leaves That Heal
Ezekiel 47:12 “the leaf thereof for medicine.”
The very leaves of these trees heal what is broken.
Revelation 22:2 completes the picture: “the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
A Christian developed by the river is not just food for the hungry, but is also medicine for the wounded.
Your testimony, words and presence heals!
Because Christ’s healing is flowing through you.
When people leave your presence, do they leave more healed or more hurt?
The Other Kind Of Water
Not every water grows trees. Some water grows mosquitoes, weeds and rot. A stagnant pond is not a source of life; it is a breeding ground for disease. What looks like water from a distance is death.
Every heart is either drinking from the river or sitting in a stagnant pond and what grows in you tells you which one. If your Christian life is producing complaining, bitterness, gossip, resentment and division, those are mosquitoes.
That is what stagnant water grows.
If your Christian life is producing patience, kindness, gentleness, soul-winning and healing, those are trees. That is what the river grows.
Jeremiah 2:13 “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”
The two waters are always available. God’s fountain, or your own broken cistern. Whichever you drink from is what will grow in you.
A Christian who wonders why they cannot stop producing bad fruit needs to check what water they are drinking from. You cannot draw from a stagnant pond and produce living fruit.
The Same Tree In Psalm 1
The tree Ezekiel saw was not the only place God painted this picture.
Psalm 1:1-3 “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”
Notice what makes the tree healthy; it is location and diet.
* Location: planted by the rivers of water. His roots are in the source.
* Diet: his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. He is drinking the Word every day.
Ezekiel 47:12 “whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed.”
Trees fed by the river do not go through seasons of spiritual death. Their leaves stay green and their fruit does not run out.
Sadly, many Christians go dormant for years at a time. They had a fruitful year in the past, but then they went dormant.
That is not the tree in Ezekiel 47. That is not the tree in Psalm 1.
The tree stays green because its roots are in the river. The moment your roots leave the river, your leaf will fade. The moment your roots go back to the river, your leaf will come back.
Check your fruit. Check your source. And if your leaf has faded, go back to the river.
