Heart Tracks - The Impossible Life?

I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5...."Instead of praying for the resurrected life, accept it and live it." Chris Tiegreen

I have a prayer written down in my journal that goes, "Lord, today I am abiding in You, receiving all of your intentions for me, and being a vessel of Your intentions to others." I'd love to say that this prayer get answered in my life every day, but it doesn't. But the lack is not on His part, but mine. Why is that so for me? Why is it so for you?

I love the above quote from Tiegreen. We spend so much time pleading with God to give us what He has already given us in Jesus Christ. Jesus said that He has freely given and we're to freely receive, but we don't take Him at His word. We think we must have to show Him how well we can do this faith walk before we can get into the fullness of life He promises.....and we fail miserably as we do so. We don't know the meaning of "abide." We know even less of its reality. At best, we seem to spend some time abiding in Him, and much more abiding in ourselves, and our own strengths and resources.

We speak much of His peace and rest but experience very little of it. We want to be about the "Father's business," but attempt it in our own strength and not His. The result is burn-out, discouragement, anxiety, even depression. We try to live a life impossible apart from Him, even though we know its impossible. We don't know how to abide. Could it be because we don't really know Him? Abiding in Him as a lifestyle requires total trust, and somehow, though we profess love for Him, we don't love Him enough to place that level of trust in Him. For too many of us, the Abundant Life is an Impossible Life.

So how do we live it? There's only one way; at the cross. We consciously come to Him, and consciously remain there. We do not let the distractions of the day draw us from His Presence. Like the branches Jesus speaks of, we are literally "in Him" all the time. This doesn't mean that we spend all day reading our Bibles and praying, but we live in an awareness of His presence, and in an attitude of prayer. Then, when circumstances, great or small collide with our lives, we are instantly facing them with a conscious awareness of Him, and responding (not reacting) to them in His life and way, and not our own. When this takes place, that prayer I wrote above gets carried out in our lives. We receive all of Him we can, and He in turn flows out of us into the situations and people around us. That is abundant life. That is what it is to abide in Him. The Impossible Life becomes very possible. It becomes our reality.

Would you join me in that prayer? Would you have, receive that Life that He has already given us through His resurrection? Would you have that Impossible Life become His Abundant Life now? Believe and receive.

Blessings,
Pastor O