One of the more glaring aspects of Jesus' ministry was His regular confrontation with the religious authorities of His day. It was their rigid, religious orthodoxy and penchant for strict obedience to a set of rules that was at issue. Their's was an outward expression that lacked any inward substance.
The account in John Chapter 7 is a good illustration of that.
It's possible for many today to harbour that same kind of external religiosity - but miss the whole point internally. You see it in many religious expressions today. I've witnessed spiritually abusive church cultures first hand. The personal damage that results can take years to recover from.
Jesus' response to that was a solution that went beyond philosophy and was supernatural in nature:
On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood up and called out in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said: ‘Streams of living water will flow from within him.’ ” He was speaking about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.
Be wary of church cultures or personalities that attempt to reduce the activity of the Holy Spirit to merely following a prescribed set of rules. At the very least, this kind of activity "quenches the Spirit" (1Thes 5:19). At it's worst, it is spiritual abuse.
When we encourage opportunities that allow the Holy Spirit to "bear witness with our spirit" (Rom 8:16), the result is a transformation of our minds (Rom 12:2).
