This week we attended a church which was very different from anything my wife had experienced before. I had been there once before, and there were some similarities between what they do and another church where we were married. Their two services are very different, and we stayed for both. In the second one, three of the men shared somewhat extemporaneously from some verses they are working through in Psalm 23.
There was much focus on verse 5:
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
As great a promise as this was to God’s people in the times where it was was first read, Christianity.com points out it might mean more to New Testament believers.
For those who are believers in the church age, an even greater blessing has been given, where one’s cup can excitedly be said to “runneth over.” This gift or blessing is salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9), and the presence of the Holy Spirit given to every believer (John 14:17).
As I thought of the idea of “overflow,” I thought of Jesus feeding the 5,000. That link is to Matthew’s record of it, but did you know that, apart from the resurrection, that miracle is the only one in all four gospels? It’s also in Mark 6, Luke 9, and John 6.
John 6:14 gives us a hint of what took place,
14 After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”
but nowhere else is there narrative of the multiplying of the loaves and fish expressly stated. Rather, it’s implied in the statement that everyone was fed and satisfied. We know that 12 baskets were left over. Did the baskets multiply, too? I would love to have had a front row seat on watching that multiplication take place. (Or maybe it would be better to have a back row seat!)
There’s no getting past that even as the baskets were being passed, the volume of food was regenerating. Wow!
Of course, our lives should overflow as well.
That got me thinking about a devotional we first published here in 2016.
Ministry out of the Overflow
Luke 6:45b
The inner self overflows with words that are spoken. (CEB)
The things people say come from inside them. (GNT)
For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. (GW)
Matthew 12:34b
For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. (NLT)
For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. (NRSV)
I’ve felt that I covered this theme before, but when I went to find it here, I couldn’t locate it. It’s a theme that turns up just about every week in my conversations with people about sharing their faith and passion for Christ, His church, the Bible, and so many other aspects of Christian living. That’s probably why I felt it was recorded here.
Hear the words of Jeremiah 20:9
But if I say, “I will not mention his word
or speak anymore in his name,”
his word is in my heart like a fire,
a fire shut up in my bones.
I am weary of holding it in;
indeed, I cannot.
Eugene Peterson renders this in The Message:
But if I say, “Forget it! No more God-Messages from me!” The words are fire in my belly, a burning in my bones. I’m worn out trying to hold it in. I can’t do it any longer!
The NIV Study Bible notes that this one verse indicates two seemingly contradictory inclinations: a prophetic reluctance that is overcome by a divine compulsion.
Amos 3:8b reiterates this:
The Eternal Lord has been heard; His prophets can’t help but prophesy. (The Voice)
We see this also in Acts 4:20
As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (NIV)
And Paul reiterates this in 1 Cor. 9:16
Yet preaching the Good News is not something I can boast about. I am compelled by God to do it. How terrible for me if I didn’t preach the Good News!
I like the CEB on this:
…I’m in trouble if I don’t preach the gospel.
Many years ago I attended a church where it was common for people to stand up and give messages (prophecy, teaching, knowledge, wisdom, etc.) spontaneously. As a person who is always thinking, always pondering the scriptures, I once asked a friend, “How do you know that this is something you’re supposed to stand up and speak out loud to everyone?”
He — and notice it was a guy not a woman who chose these words — said, “It’s like you’re pregnant with it. It has to come out. It has to be delivered. It has to be shared.”
Later, I began to hear people speak about ministry which comes out of the overflow of the heart. There is simply so much contained inside that it spills outside.
This reminded me of another analogy — this one I might have used before — of what it means to be filled with the Spirit. If you open the top of a can of soda pop, you can look inside and say that it’s filled. The contents fill the entire can. There is no room for any more.
But what it means to be filled changes if you put your thumb over the opening and then shake up the contents. What was filled spills out. It overflows.
So it is with our verbal proclamation. Whether evangelism, encouragement, or even rebuke, it has to come from somewhere. There needs to have been some point where content was poured into our lives. But then, when shaken, the contents overflow.
Matthew Henry says of the Amos passage:
They [the prophets] are so full of those things themselves, so well assured concerning them, and so much affected with them, that they cannot but speak of them; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth will speak.
Their prophetic reluctance is overcome.
Christianity 201 