Jesus: 'Abide in me, and I in you'

Psalm 37 advises, “[1] Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity.
[2] For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.
[3] Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
[4] Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
[5] Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

“How do you trust in the Lord; commit your way to the Lord? First, you’ve got to know the Lord and know His mind,” explains Preacher Richard Jordan. “How are you going to trust Him if you don’t know Him? How can you trust Him if you don’t know what to trust Him about?

“Verse 4 says to ‘delight thyself in the Lord.’ That means you need to know some things about the Lord to be delighted about. People make all this stuff up; they say they talk to the Lord and He talks to them. They make a God in their own mind and delight in their own God.

“James 4:3 says, ‘They ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.’ That’s what religion does! Religion is just designed to satisfy the lust of your flesh. And it will create a God who will do that for you.

“But the way you do what’s in Psalm 37, and this is a tremendous psalm, is in verse 1: ‘Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. fret not iniquity.’

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“If you ever wanted to see some people who had reason to worry and the antidote for it, it’s this Believing Remnant in the tribulation looking out and seeing evil prosper. What are they to do?

“Proverbs 3:6 says, ‘In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.’

“Jesus says, ‘If you abide in me, focus on who I am and value me more than anything else and let your mind be controlled by my word, you know what will happen? You’ll have the knowledge to ask the right things that ought to be accomplished.’

“By the way, do you remember the old adage about prayer? A-S-K. ‘Ask, seek, knock.’  If you go back and read Matthew 7:7 (‘Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you’), the people Christ’s talking to in the context are fruitful believers. That’s on the Sermon on the Mount.

“John 15:8 says, ‘Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.’ When you are bearing fruit, the way you bear fruit is you abide in Him, you draw your resources from Him and you have your thinking regulated by His Word. If you do that, you’re going to bear fruit; the outward expression of that inner life.

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“Jesus Christ says in John 15:4, ‘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.’

“In verse 7, He says it a little differently: ‘If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’

“That helps you define verse 4 when He says, ‘Abide in me, and I in you.’ ‘You abide in me, you keep your heart focused on me and you be occupied with me,’ Christ says in preparing the apostles to go through ‘the time of Jacob’s trouble.’

“To abide in something is to stay there. Constantly. You don’t leave. This is home. You’re going to dwell there. You’re going to be there not just occasionally, not sporadically, not fitfully, but this is where your heart’s going to be OCCUPIED.

“ ‘And if my word abides in you.’ There’s those two issues here. ‘Your heart’s going to be occupied with me, keep your eyes on me, look to Jesus the Author and finisher of our faith,’ it says in Hebrews, ‘but also have your life regulated by the Scripture.’

“They’re to be focused on who Christ is and what He’s provided for them. They’re to take their stand and just rest in who God’s made them and the provisions God’s going to equip them with in Christ and then let their thinking and their actions be regulated by what His word has to say.

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“By constantly, habitually communing with God through His Word until it becomes the substance of their inner being—that’s exactly what Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 tell them is going to take place.

“He’s going to take His law and write it in their hearts and that law that He writes in their hearts is going to cause them—there’s going to be an internal compulsion that comes from the Word written in their heart that causes them to keep His commandment; that internal empowering. He’s talking about, ‘That’s the provision and that’s where you want to be.’ ”

(new article tomorrow)