HIS WORDS ABIDING IN US

Not as if to the faith he has the obedience must be added, but faith must be made manifest in obedience. Faith is obedience at home and looking to the Master; obedience is faith going out to do His will. He sees how he has been more occupied with the privilege and the blessings of this abiding than with its duties and its fruit. There has been much of self and of self-will that has been unnoticed or tolerated: the peace which, as a young and feeble disciple, he could enjoy in believing goes from him; it is in practical obedience that the abiding must be maintained:

A life marked by daily answers to prayer is the proof of our spiritual maturity, that we have indeed attained to the true abiding in Christ, that our will is truly at one with God's will, that our faith has grown strong to see and take what God has prepared for us; that the Name of Christ and His nature have taken full possession of us; and that we have been found fit to

take a place among those whom God admits to His counsels and according to whose prayer He rules the world. These are they in whom something of man's original dignity hath been restored, in whom, as they abide in Christ, His power as the all-prevailing Intercessor can manifest itself, in whom the glory of His Name is shown forth.

Prayer is very blessed; the answer is more blessed still, as the response from the Father that

our prayer,

our faith,

and our will are true as He would wish them to be.

I make these remarks with the one desire of leading my readers themselves to put together all that Christ has said on prayer and to yield themselves to the full impression of the truth that when prayer is what it should be, or rather when we are what we should be, abiding in Christ, the answer must be expected.

It will bring us out from those refuges where we have comforted ourselves with unanswered prayer. It will discover the place of power to which Christ has appointed His Church and which it so little occupies. It will reveal the terrible feebleness of our spiritual life as the cause of our not knowing to pray boldly in Christ's Name. It will urge us mightily to rise to a life in the full union with Christ and in the fulness of the Spirit as the secret of effectual prayer.

And it will so lead us on to realize our destiny:

Jhn 16:23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.

Jhn 16:24 Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.

Prayer, that is, spiritually in union with Jesus, is always answered.

LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY!

Thou sayest: Abide in me! O my Master, my Life, my All, I do abide in Thee. Give Thou me to grow up into all Thy fulness. It is not the effort of faith, seeking to ding to Thee, nor even the rest of faith, trusting Thee to keep me; it is not the obedience of the will, nor the keeping the commandments; but it is Thyself living in me and in the Father, that alone can satisfy me. It is Thy self, my Lord, no longer before me and above me, but one with me, and abiding in me; it is this I need, it is this I seek. It is this I trust Thee for.

Thou sayest: Ask whatsoever ye will! Lord! I know that the full, deep abiding life will so renew and sanctify and strengthen the will that I shall have the light and the liberty to ask great things. Lord! let my will, dead in Thy death, living in Thy life, be bold and large in its petitions.

Thou sayest: It shall be done. O Thou who art the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, give me in Thyself the joyous confidence that Thou wilt make this word yet more wonderfully true to me than ever, because it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for them that love Him. Amen.

Worshipping the God of the Bible is understanding we are His created being and we need to be aligned with His purpose.

If we are a culture that believes that our feeling are more important than God, our church, Biblical values, and morality then we are a culture that has replaced God with a false God.

Psa 81:11 But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me.

THE vital connection between the word and prayer is one of the simplest and earliest lessons of the Christian life. As that newly converted heathen put it: I pray--I speak to my father; I read--my Father says to me. Before prayer, God’s word prepares me for it by revealing what the Father has bid me ask. In prayer, God’s word strengthens me by giving my faith its warrant and its plea. And after prayer, God’s word brings me the answer when I have prayed, for in it the Spirit gives me to hear the Father's voice. Prayer is not monologue but dialogue; God's voice in response to mine in its most essential part. Listening to God's voice is the secret of the assurance that He will listen to mine. Incline thine ear, and hear; Give ear to me; Hearken to my voice; are words which God speaks to man and man to God. His hearkening will depend on ours; the entrance His words find with me will be the measure of the power of my words with Him. What God's words are to me, is the test of what He Himself is to me, and so of the uprightness of my desire after Him in prayer.

It is this connection between His word and our prayer that Jesus points to when He says, If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you The deep importance of this truth becomes clear if we notice the other expression of which this one has taken the place. More than once, Jesus had said, "Abide in me and I in you' His abiding in us was the complement and the crown of our abiding in Him. But here, instead of Ye in me and I in you,'

He says, Ye in me and my words in you!' His words abiding are the equivalent of Himself abiding.

What a view is here opened up to us of the place the words of God in Christ are to have in our spiritual life, and especially in our prayer. In a man's words, he reveals himself. In his promises, he gives himself away; he binds himself to the one who receives his promise. In his commands he sets forth his will, seeks to make himself master of him whose obedience he claims, to guide and use him as if he were part of himself. It is through our words that spirit holds fellowship with spirit, that the spirit of one man passes over and transfers itself into another. It is through the words of a man, heard and accepted, and held fast and obeyed, that he can impart himself to another. But all this in a very relative and limited sense.

But when God, the infinite Being, in whom everything is life and power, spirit and truth, in the very most profound meaning of the words,-when God speaks forth Himself in His words, He does indeed give HIMSELF, His Love and His Life, His Will and His Power, to those who receive these words, in a reality passing comprehension. In every promise, He puts Himself in our power to lay hold of and possess; in every command, He puts Himself in our power for us to share His Will, His Holiness, and His Perfection. In God's Word God gives us HIMSELF; His Word is nothing less than the Eternal Son, Christ Jesus. And so all Christ's words are God's words, full of a Divine quickening life and power. The words that I speak unto you are spirit and life!

Those who have made the deaf and dumb their study tell us how much the power of speaking depends on hearing and how the loss of hearing in children is followed by that of speaking too. This is true in the broader sense: as we hear, so we speak. This is true in the highest sense of our intercourse with God. Offering a prayer- giving utterance to specific wishes and appealing to particular promises- is easy and can be learned by man through human wisdom.

But to pray in the Spirit, to speak words that reach and touch God, that affect and influence the powers of the unseen world -such praying, such speaking depends entirely upon our hearing God's voice. Just as far as we listen to the voice and language that God speaks, and in the words of God receive His thoughts, His mind, His life, into our heart, we shall learn to say in the voice and the language that God hears, It is the ear of the learner, wakened morning by morning, that prepares for the tongue of the learned, to speak to God as well as men, as should be (Isa. 1.4).

Victory

Threats

Juniper Tree

1Ki 19:9 And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?

1Ki 19:10 And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

1Ki 19:11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake:

1Ki 19:12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

1Ki 19:13 And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?

Hearing God’s voice is more than the thoughtful study of the Word. There may be a study and knowledge of the Word, in which there is little genuine fellowship with the living God. But there is also a reading of the Word, in the very presence of the Father, and under the leading of the Spirit, in which the Word comes to us in living power from God Himself; it is to us the very voice of the Father, a real personal fellowship with Himself. The living voice of God enters the heart, brings blessing and strength, and awakens the response of a living faith that reaches the heart of God again.

It is hearing the voice that gives the power to obey and believe. The chief thing is, not to know what God has said we must do, but that God Himself says it to us. It is not the law, book, or knowledge of what is right that works obedience, but the personal influence of God and His living fellowship. Even so, it is not the knowledge of what God has promised but the presence of God Himself as the Promiser that awakens faith and trust in prayer. It is only in the entire presence of God that disobedience and unbelief become impossible.

If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, it shall be done unto you.' We see what this means. In the words the Saviour gives Himself. We must have the words in us, taken up into our will and life, reproduced in our disposition and conduct. We must have them abiding in us; our whole life one continued exposition of the words tin, and within, and filling us; the words revealing Christ within, and our life revealing Him without. It is as the words of Christ enter our very heart, become our life, and influence it, and our words will enter His heart and influence Him. My prayer will depend on my life; what God's words are to me and in me, my words will be to God and in God. If I do what God says, God will do what I say.

Saints understood this connection between God’s words and ours and how prayer with them was the loving response to what they had heard God speak! They counted on God to do as He had spoken if the word were a promise. Do as Thou hast said; For Thou, Lord, hast spoken it; According to Thy promise; According to Thy word; in such expressions, they showed that what God spake in promise was the root and the life of what they spake in prayer. If the word was a command, they simply did as the Lord had spoken: So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken!

Their life was fellowship with God, the interchange of word and thought. What God spoke they heard and did; what they spoke God heard and did. In each word He speaks to us, the whole Christ gives Himself to fulfill it for us. For each word, He asks no less that we give the whole man to keep that word and to receive its fulfillment.

It asks no less that we give the whole man to keep that word and to receive its fulfillment.

If my words abide in you, the condition is simple and straightforward.

In His words, His will is revealed. As the words abide in me, His will rules me; my will becomes the empty vessel which His will fills, the willing instrument which His will wields; He fills my inner being. In obedience and faith, my will becomes ever stronger and is brought into deeper inner harmony with Him. He can fully trust it to will nothing but what He wills; He is not afraid to give the promise, If my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, it shall be done unto you!

To all who believe it and act upon it, He will make it true.

Disciples of Christ! is it not becoming more and more apparent to us that while we have been excusing our unanswered prayers, our impotence in prayer, with a fancied submission to God's wisdom and will, the real reason has been that our own feeble life has been the cause of our feeble prayers. Nothing can make strong men but the word comes from God's mouth: by that we must live. It is the word of Christ, loved, lived in, abiding in us, becoming through obedience and action part of our being, that makes us one with Christ, that fits us spiritually for touching, for taking hold of God. All that is of the world passeth away; he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.

O let us yield heart and life to the words of Christ, the words in which He ever gives HIMSELF, the personal living Saviour, and His promise will be our rich experience: If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.'

'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY!