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John 15:1-6,
I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned."
(This portion of Scripture opens up more and more to me every time I read it or meditate on it, or remember it in my prayers. Abiding. Staying in or living in. Remaining with someone. The Greek word "meno" means abide, and continue in, remain, sojourn, not depart, to be held and kept, to last and endure. So there is absolutely no room here for that all too popular sinners prayer and then saying, well I accepted Christ 5 years ago, or when I was a child, so I'm Ok. Wrong. You must abide. The Scripture is clear what happens when a man does not abide in Christ, and that means a person: that are cast forth as a branch withered, and are burned).
Andrew Murray wrote this in regard to abiding,
"I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I also am apprehended of Christ Jesus. "-PHIL.3:12
MORE than one admits that it is a sacred duty and a blessed privilege to abide in Christ, but shrinks back continually before the question: Is it possible, a life of unbroken fellowship with the Saviour? Eminent Christians, to whom special opportunities of cultivating this grace have been granted, may attain to it; for the large majority of disciples, whose life, by a divine appointment, is so fully occupied with the affairs of this life, it can scarce be expected. The more they hear of this life, the deeper their sense of its glory and blessedness, and there is nothing they would not sacrifice to be made partakers of it. But they are too weak, too unfaithful-they never can attain to it.
Dear souls! how little they know that the abiding in Christ is just meant for the weak, and so beautifully suited to their feebleness. It is not the doing of some great thing, and does not demand that we first lead a very holy and devoted life. No, it is simply weakness entrusting itself to a Mighty One to be kept-the unfaithful one casting self on One who is altogether trustworthy and true. Abiding in Him is not a work that we have to do as the condition for enjoying His salvation, but a consenting to let Him do all for us, and in us, and through us. It is a work He does for us the fruit and the power of His redeeming love. Our part is simply to yield, to trust, and to wait for what He has engaged to perform."
(The sure way to know you abide in Christ is to surrender to Christ. Surrender is yielding, but more than yielding, it is complete abandonment of self to Christ. One who is continually surrendered, and is surrendering when they find the flesh trying to exert itself against the Spirit, shall abide in Him. Murray further writes regarding surrender):
God Expects Your Surrender,
You know in daily life what absolute surrender is. You know that everything has to be given up to its special, definite object and service. I have a pen in my pocket, and that pen is absolutely surrendered to the one work of writing. That pen must be absolutely surrendered to my hand if I am to write properly with it. If another holds it partly, I cannot write properly. This coat is absolutely given up to me to cover my body.
This building is entirely given up to religious services. And now, do you expect that in your immortal being, in the divine nature that you have received by regeneration, God can work His work, every day and every hour, unless you are entirely given up to Him? God cannot. The temple of Solomon was absolutely surrendered to God when it was dedicated to Him.
And every one of us is a temple of God, in which God will dwell and work mightily on one condition-absolute surrender to Him. God claims it, God is worthy of it, and without it God cannot work His blessed work in us.
God Accomplishes Your Surrender,
"I am sure there is many a heart that says: "Ah, but that absolute surrender implies so much!" Someone says: "Oh, I have passed through so much trial and suffering, and there is so much of the self-life still remaining, and I dare not face the entire giving of it up, because I know it will cause so much trouble and agony."
Alas! alas! that God's children have such thoughts of Him, such cruel thoughts. Oh, I come to you with a message, fearful and anxious one. God does not ask you to give the perfect surrender in your strength, or by the power of your will; God is willing to work it in you. Do we not read: "It is God that worketh in us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure"? And that is what we should seek for -- to go on our faces before God, until our hearts learn to believe that the everlasting God Himself will come in to turn out what is wrong, to conquer what is evil, and to work what is well-pleasing in His blessed sight. God Himself will work it in you.
Look at the men in the Old Testament, like Abraham. Do you think it was by accident that God found that man, the father of the faithful and the Friend of God, and that it was Abraham himself, apart from God, who had such faith and such obedience and such devotion? You know it is not so. God raised him up and prepared him as an instrument for His glory.
Did not God say to Pharaoh: "For this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power"?
And if God said that of him, will not God say it far more of every child of His?
Oh, I want to encourage you, and I want you to cast away every fear. Come with that feeble desire; and if there is the fear which says: "Oh, my desire is not strong enough, I am not willing for everything that may come, I do not feel bold enough to say I can conquer everything" -- I pray you, learn to know and trust your God now. Say: "My God, I am willing that Thou shouldst make me willing." If there is anything holding you back, or any sacrifice you are afraid of making, come to God now, and prove how gracious your God is, and be not afraid that He will command from you what He will not bestow.
God comes and offers to work this absolute surrender in you. All these searchings and hungerings and longings that are in your heart, I tell you they are the drawings of the divine magnet, Christ Jesus. He lived a life of absolute surrender, He has possession of you; He is living in your heart by His Holy Spirit. You have hindered and hindered Him terribly, but He desires to help you to get hold of Him entirely. And He comes and draws you now by His message and words. Will you not come and trust God to work in you that absolute surrender to Himself? Yes, blessed be God, He can do it, and He will do it.
God not only claims it and works it, but God accepts it when we bring it to Him."
AW Tozer wrote,
"No one has any right to believe that he is indeed a Christian unless he is humbly seeking to obey the teachings of the One whom he calls Lord. Christ once asked a question (Luke 6:46) that can have no satisfying answer, Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say??
Right here we do well to anticipate and reply to an objection that will likely arise in the minds of some readers. It goes like this: We are saved by accepting Christ, not by keeping His commandments. Christ kept the law for us, died for us and rose again for our justification, and so delivered us from all necessity to keep commandments. Is it not possible, then, to become a Christian by simple faith altogether apart from obedience??
Many honest persons argue in this way, but their honesty cannot save their argument from being erroneous. Theirs is the teaching that has in the last fifty years emasculated the evangelical message and lowered the moral standards of the Church until they are almost indistinguishable from those of the world. It results from a misunderstanding of grace and a narrow and one-sided view of the gospel, and its power to mislead lies in the element of truth it contains. It is arrived at by laying correct premises and then drawing false conclusions from them." (Tozer: Submitting to Christ's Lordship)
(That's potent. That's powerful. And I run into it all the time. "Just believe in Jesus. Just accept Him one time and you're saved. That's it. That's all you have to do." Well, the truth there is all of that is true, INITIALLY. That's how one comes to Christ when He calls. But the Bible teaches an abiding, and a surrendering, and a continuing, "Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed" (John 8:31)
And Colossians 1:21-23,
" And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister..."
There's that conditional "IF" there in verse 23 in regards to continuing in the faith, which is continuing in His Word, which is a continual surrendering unto Him, which is the very definition of abiding in Christ!
Spurgeon preached, "It is not only upon the first day of the Christian's life that he must needs look to Jesus only, but every day of that life, even until the last, his motto must be, "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." (Life in Christ, 1870)
(We cannot get to heaven on a one time prayer. That's not Scriptural except for one example, and that was the thief dying on the cross next to Jesus who turned to Christ in His final moments. That's the only time a one time prayer is a saving prayer. I imagine there's been quite a few who lived like the devil and may have called out to Jesus to save them as they were about to die, and according to Scripture they'd be saved.
I'm reminded of the parable Jesus taught where those who agreed to work all day were paid the same as the one who agreed to work for only the last hour. We who were called many years ago cannot be jealous or envious of those who lived all their lives in the world, and in their flesh, and were saved in their last moments, or last few days or weeks. Praise God they are saved. God chose them to that. We do not know why. His ways are not ours.
But for those who do hear the call and God has chosen them at an earlier time of life, He's called you to a mission, and a mission of obedience and surrender. And we can be blessed in this life, and have the joy of the LORD and His strength, and in the end, eternal life. But, Oh, do not put it off, because no one knows if you'll have a chance to surrender to Christ in the moments before death, because sometimes death happens so suddenly there is no time. A bullet, an explosion, an accident at high speed, and death can be instant. That is why it is wise to get that oil in your lamps now, and abide in Christ, and He in you; surrendered to Him ye must be, and then are you sealed unto the day of redemption.
Amen.)
I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned."
(This portion of Scripture opens up more and more to me every time I read it or meditate on it, or remember it in my prayers. Abiding. Staying in or living in. Remaining with someone. The Greek word "meno" means abide, and continue in, remain, sojourn, not depart, to be held and kept, to last and endure. So there is absolutely no room here for that all too popular sinners prayer and then saying, well I accepted Christ 5 years ago, or when I was a child, so I'm Ok. Wrong. You must abide. The Scripture is clear what happens when a man does not abide in Christ, and that means a person: that are cast forth as a branch withered, and are burned).
Andrew Murray wrote this in regard to abiding,
"I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I also am apprehended of Christ Jesus. "-PHIL.3:12
MORE than one admits that it is a sacred duty and a blessed privilege to abide in Christ, but shrinks back continually before the question: Is it possible, a life of unbroken fellowship with the Saviour? Eminent Christians, to whom special opportunities of cultivating this grace have been granted, may attain to it; for the large majority of disciples, whose life, by a divine appointment, is so fully occupied with the affairs of this life, it can scarce be expected. The more they hear of this life, the deeper their sense of its glory and blessedness, and there is nothing they would not sacrifice to be made partakers of it. But they are too weak, too unfaithful-they never can attain to it.
Dear souls! how little they know that the abiding in Christ is just meant for the weak, and so beautifully suited to their feebleness. It is not the doing of some great thing, and does not demand that we first lead a very holy and devoted life. No, it is simply weakness entrusting itself to a Mighty One to be kept-the unfaithful one casting self on One who is altogether trustworthy and true. Abiding in Him is not a work that we have to do as the condition for enjoying His salvation, but a consenting to let Him do all for us, and in us, and through us. It is a work He does for us the fruit and the power of His redeeming love. Our part is simply to yield, to trust, and to wait for what He has engaged to perform."
(The sure way to know you abide in Christ is to surrender to Christ. Surrender is yielding, but more than yielding, it is complete abandonment of self to Christ. One who is continually surrendered, and is surrendering when they find the flesh trying to exert itself against the Spirit, shall abide in Him. Murray further writes regarding surrender):
God Expects Your Surrender,
You know in daily life what absolute surrender is. You know that everything has to be given up to its special, definite object and service. I have a pen in my pocket, and that pen is absolutely surrendered to the one work of writing. That pen must be absolutely surrendered to my hand if I am to write properly with it. If another holds it partly, I cannot write properly. This coat is absolutely given up to me to cover my body.
This building is entirely given up to religious services. And now, do you expect that in your immortal being, in the divine nature that you have received by regeneration, God can work His work, every day and every hour, unless you are entirely given up to Him? God cannot. The temple of Solomon was absolutely surrendered to God when it was dedicated to Him.
And every one of us is a temple of God, in which God will dwell and work mightily on one condition-absolute surrender to Him. God claims it, God is worthy of it, and without it God cannot work His blessed work in us.
God Accomplishes Your Surrender,
"I am sure there is many a heart that says: "Ah, but that absolute surrender implies so much!" Someone says: "Oh, I have passed through so much trial and suffering, and there is so much of the self-life still remaining, and I dare not face the entire giving of it up, because I know it will cause so much trouble and agony."
Alas! alas! that God's children have such thoughts of Him, such cruel thoughts. Oh, I come to you with a message, fearful and anxious one. God does not ask you to give the perfect surrender in your strength, or by the power of your will; God is willing to work it in you. Do we not read: "It is God that worketh in us, both to will and to do of his good pleasure"? And that is what we should seek for -- to go on our faces before God, until our hearts learn to believe that the everlasting God Himself will come in to turn out what is wrong, to conquer what is evil, and to work what is well-pleasing in His blessed sight. God Himself will work it in you.
Look at the men in the Old Testament, like Abraham. Do you think it was by accident that God found that man, the father of the faithful and the Friend of God, and that it was Abraham himself, apart from God, who had such faith and such obedience and such devotion? You know it is not so. God raised him up and prepared him as an instrument for His glory.
Did not God say to Pharaoh: "For this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power"?
And if God said that of him, will not God say it far more of every child of His?
Oh, I want to encourage you, and I want you to cast away every fear. Come with that feeble desire; and if there is the fear which says: "Oh, my desire is not strong enough, I am not willing for everything that may come, I do not feel bold enough to say I can conquer everything" -- I pray you, learn to know and trust your God now. Say: "My God, I am willing that Thou shouldst make me willing." If there is anything holding you back, or any sacrifice you are afraid of making, come to God now, and prove how gracious your God is, and be not afraid that He will command from you what He will not bestow.
God comes and offers to work this absolute surrender in you. All these searchings and hungerings and longings that are in your heart, I tell you they are the drawings of the divine magnet, Christ Jesus. He lived a life of absolute surrender, He has possession of you; He is living in your heart by His Holy Spirit. You have hindered and hindered Him terribly, but He desires to help you to get hold of Him entirely. And He comes and draws you now by His message and words. Will you not come and trust God to work in you that absolute surrender to Himself? Yes, blessed be God, He can do it, and He will do it.
God not only claims it and works it, but God accepts it when we bring it to Him."
AW Tozer wrote,
"No one has any right to believe that he is indeed a Christian unless he is humbly seeking to obey the teachings of the One whom he calls Lord. Christ once asked a question (Luke 6:46) that can have no satisfying answer, Why do you call me, 'Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say??
Right here we do well to anticipate and reply to an objection that will likely arise in the minds of some readers. It goes like this: We are saved by accepting Christ, not by keeping His commandments. Christ kept the law for us, died for us and rose again for our justification, and so delivered us from all necessity to keep commandments. Is it not possible, then, to become a Christian by simple faith altogether apart from obedience??
Many honest persons argue in this way, but their honesty cannot save their argument from being erroneous. Theirs is the teaching that has in the last fifty years emasculated the evangelical message and lowered the moral standards of the Church until they are almost indistinguishable from those of the world. It results from a misunderstanding of grace and a narrow and one-sided view of the gospel, and its power to mislead lies in the element of truth it contains. It is arrived at by laying correct premises and then drawing false conclusions from them." (Tozer: Submitting to Christ's Lordship)
(That's potent. That's powerful. And I run into it all the time. "Just believe in Jesus. Just accept Him one time and you're saved. That's it. That's all you have to do." Well, the truth there is all of that is true, INITIALLY. That's how one comes to Christ when He calls. But the Bible teaches an abiding, and a surrendering, and a continuing, "Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed" (John 8:31)
And Colossians 1:21-23,
" And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister..."
There's that conditional "IF" there in verse 23 in regards to continuing in the faith, which is continuing in His Word, which is a continual surrendering unto Him, which is the very definition of abiding in Christ!
Spurgeon preached, "It is not only upon the first day of the Christian's life that he must needs look to Jesus only, but every day of that life, even until the last, his motto must be, "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." (Life in Christ, 1870)
(We cannot get to heaven on a one time prayer. That's not Scriptural except for one example, and that was the thief dying on the cross next to Jesus who turned to Christ in His final moments. That's the only time a one time prayer is a saving prayer. I imagine there's been quite a few who lived like the devil and may have called out to Jesus to save them as they were about to die, and according to Scripture they'd be saved.
I'm reminded of the parable Jesus taught where those who agreed to work all day were paid the same as the one who agreed to work for only the last hour. We who were called many years ago cannot be jealous or envious of those who lived all their lives in the world, and in their flesh, and were saved in their last moments, or last few days or weeks. Praise God they are saved. God chose them to that. We do not know why. His ways are not ours.
But for those who do hear the call and God has chosen them at an earlier time of life, He's called you to a mission, and a mission of obedience and surrender. And we can be blessed in this life, and have the joy of the LORD and His strength, and in the end, eternal life. But, Oh, do not put it off, because no one knows if you'll have a chance to surrender to Christ in the moments before death, because sometimes death happens so suddenly there is no time. A bullet, an explosion, an accident at high speed, and death can be instant. That is why it is wise to get that oil in your lamps now, and abide in Christ, and He in you; surrendered to Him ye must be, and then are you sealed unto the day of redemption.
Amen.)
