“And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.”
– Ezekiel 47:12
I love this picture in Ezekiel 47. Just imagine it, this water flowing from the sanctuary, from the fountain of God’s holy presence, and it’s bearing fruit on both sides of the river. Just picture these trees flourishing with fruit every month, their leaves a picture of healing. And just picture this, the presence of God, flowing in such a way that fruit is rising, unimaginable, beautiful, bountiful, plentiful, fruit and healing. And in the picture here at Ezekiel 47, it starts as a trickle. Then it flows deeper and deeper to overflowing.
And I read this and I think well, about my own life, about your life. Don’t you want this to be your life? Just the Holy Spirit of God flowing in you, through you, in ways that are bearing beautiful, bountiful, plentiful fruit. Think the fruit of the spirit. Just love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. Don’t you want these things flowing from your life, in power, to be a witness to others, that they might experience the healing, the fruit of God’s grace and God’s spirit through Jesus? Don’t we want this in our lives, in our families, in our churches? And don’t we want this kind of spiritual fruit where we live in our cities and our countries? Don’t we want this among the nations?
Oh, let’s just pray this picture over all these different realms. God, we pray for Ezekiel 47 in our lives. God, we pray, in my life today and each of our lives today, that your spirit would flow, overflow, in us, through us. Produce, we pray, love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness, faithfulness and gentleness and self-control in us, through a supernatural fruit. God, we pray for that. That’s not natural. We are so prone in our flesh to all kinds of things but those things. We pray for the fruit of your spirit in our lives. And we pray this over our homes, our families, our friendships in Christ. God, we pray this over our churches, that our churches would be places where the fruit of your spirit is overflowing and people are finding healing.
We pray this over people we’re sharing the gospel with right now. God, we pray that your spirit would open their eyes to your grace and your love. In Jesus we pray this over people. We’ve been praying for a long time in our lives to come to know you. God, may it happen. May the fruit of your spirit and the gospel come about in their lives. God, may the gospel and your Holy Spirit bear fruit in their lives, we pray. And God, we pray this over the nations. We pray this over all the peoples of the world, specifically unreached peoples. God, we see every day in the news right now, Russia and Ukraine. We pray right now for the Kumyk people of Russia, up in Dagestan and the Caucuses region where it’s so hard to spread the gospel. There are so many barriers to the spread of the gospel in the Caucuses there. We pray, God, we ask for the fruit of the gospel and your spirit to come alive and bring healing and life all throughout the Dagestan region, all throughout the Caucuses of Russia, and specifically among the Kumyk people.
God, may the gospel spread to them and through them. May they experience healing and hope and joy and love and peace that lasts forever through your spirit in your people proclaiming your gospel, your word. Oh God, we pray Ezekiel 47 over our lives, our marriages, our families, over our friendships in Christ, over the church, over those who are lost, over our cities and communities. God, for spiritual awakening like this we pray. And God we pray Ezekiel 47 over the nations. May your glory fill more and more people and more and more people groups all over the earth. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
