'"Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.' John 7:38-39a
Now the streams of living water thing is awesome but it's not the focus of my thought here. I recently connected with a couple of young and passionate Latter Day Saints (Mormons to lay person) and it simply reignited my study of and faith in the Text that has been carried along by the Spirit, the Counselor and reminder of Jesus' teachings, a Truth that has been tested and approved.
Jesus breathed and poured the Spirit on them (John 20/Acts 2), an awesome picture of an intrinsically unified God. And that Spirit of power was received, is here and will continue working in the Church until Christ returns 'and finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God' (Luke 22).
At no point from Christ's ascension to this very day has the Spirit left the Church to our own demise as the Mormons may propose. He has been and is on the job until Christ returns to redeem His Church in the great finale! If the Spirit truly was sent for all as Jesus prayed in John 17 - then the Mormons Extra New Testament of Jesus' Vacation in the 'Merica's is all the more shown to be in the least unnecessary and at worst unbiblical and destructive.
And while the conversation may be greater than this tiny thought on a partial passage...it isn't anything less.
