After all, the grand secret of making happy is being happy. If the love of God is flowing into me, the love of God will be flowing out from me. It is quite true that if I am hungering and thirsting, God will fill me. But hungering and thirsting after a thing is not the flowing forth of it from me to others. Moreover, if I have not settled peace in my conscience, there cannot be this outflow, for there is nothing to flow.
But one may say, Are we never to hunger and thirst again? No, never, as if we had not already that which satisfies. So Christ says, " He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." " Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life." A well of water springing up is not hungering and thirsting. It is not that I shall not desire more of the enjoyment, but it is like a child who has got something very good. I have got the well of living water in me. It is not thirsting after a thing that I have not. I have got the Holy Ghost. Having the Holy Ghost, I am brought into connection with that which is infinite, so I can never thirst, for I am in connection with it, that is, I am in connection with God. But just because I am in connection with it, the taste of it awakens desire for more, and it being infinite, there is no cessation in the flowing in. I am ever thirsting but never thirsty.
People think it a wonderful attainment to be able to say with Peter, "Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee." But, in truth, it is the lowest possible ground for a Christian to be on. It is owning that he had gone on so badly, that if man were to judge, there would be no ground to speak for him at all; and it is appealing to the omniscience of the Lord as his only refuge. His eye could see that there was love at the bottom of Peter's heart when nobody else could see it there. Then we have marvelous grace immediately after; for, having broken down his confidence in himself, he trusts him with the thing that was dearest to him; "Feed my sheep."