Learning to Abide

Another beautiful day up here in the foothills. It's a bit breezy but sunny and warm. We've been doing a few outdoorsy things this morning. M trimmed the hedge plants that grow along our entrance walk and I took down my door wreath, and watered all my plants by the front door, so our entry looks 100% better. [The wreath I took down was a "fall" wreath, believe it or not. As I've said before, things don't move very fast around this household. To say we border on lazy wouldn't be too far off base. But I prefer to think of us as "energy challenged."]

Yesterday M spent the entire day making a console for the bus to fit between the seats to hold our coffee cups and other small things. My beloved can make anything. Give him time and scrap wood and he'd build a mansion. With our bus (1964 Ford) the engine "hump" is between the seats so M had to design something that would work and yet fit around and over the motor without really getting in the way. He is one of the most creative people on the face of the earth. He can (and quite often does) create incredible things. This will be so nice when it's finished. [It's actually finished except for the varnish and he's working on that this morning.] Now when we make the trek across the river to do our shopping, we'll have a place to put our coffee without worrying about it tipping over in the bus, or, worse, having so sit there and hold two cups of coffee in my hands all the way over and back.

My Easter lily is bloomed out beautifully. It still has more buds to blossom so it will grace our entrance for awhile longer. When it's finished blooming I will give it to my sister across the river to plant in her garden. [I kill everything I try to grow except for cactus or succulents. I seem to do okay with them most of the time. And now they look really good since I repotted them last fall.] Back to the lily, I will miss its scent when it is no longer by the door. I know that I've smelled other lilies and they've had no fragrance at all. This lily has such a sweet welcoming aroma when you walk up to the front door.

I've been thinking a lot about Heather at Lazydranch8 for several days now. I don't mean fleeting thoughts. I mean I've been THINKING about her big time and wishing there were something I could do to ease her burden. But sometimes words just simply fail me. My heart aches for her and her children. I want so much to get into her life and make a difference, to fix it all and make it whole again. But I can't do that. This is one of the valleys we have to walk alone. I can accompany her only so far. But I'd gladly carry any burden she has, even if it's only for a little while.

For Heather: At this moment, abandon all anxiety about your life to the God who has undertaken to establish you in the Vine, and feel what a joy it is to know that God alone is in charge. Ask and trust Him by the Holy Spirit ever to remind you of this your blessed relation to Him. He will do it. And with each new morning your faith shall grow stronger and brighter. Amen.

By nature my heart is full of selfishness. Even in me, a believer, my own salvation and happiness are often too much my only object. But by abiding in Jesus, I come into contact with His infinite love; its fire begins to burn within my heart; I see clearly the beauty of that love; and I learn to look upon loving and serving and saving others as the highest privilege I can have as a follower of Jesus Christ. Abiding in Christ, my heart learns to feel the wretchedness of the sinner still in darkness. With Christ I begin to bear the burden of souls, the burden of sins not my own. As I am more closely united to Him, something of the passion for souls which urged Him to Calvary begins to breathe within me. Christ is teaching me to love. The very Spirit of Christ the Living Vine is love; the Spirit of love streams into the branch that abides in Him.

Abiding in Christ, I receive new courage and strength for the work. Believing that Christ teaches me, that it is He who through me will give His blessing to the world, and I understand that I am but the feeble instrument through which the hidden power of Christ does its work, so that His strength may be perfected and made glorious in my weakness. The great secret of abiding in Christ is the deep conviction that I am nothing and He is everything. If I truly believe this, I will yield myself wholly up to Christ for service in the spirit of a simple, childlike trust and will assuredly bring forth much fruit. And this fruit isn't so much that of reaping souls for harvest, though it is most definitely that, but this fruit is the outworking of Christ in my life in whatever area He chooses to use me. My fruit can be as pure and simple as giving comfort where comfort is needed. But it can most assuredly be applied to the saving of souls. There is fruit-producing work among the sick, the poor, and the outcast. There is work in a hundred different paths which the Spirit of Christ opens up through me as I allow myself to be used and led by Him.

I must allow a living Christ working in me to be the secret spring of all my labors that will bring forth humility and courage and deeds for Christ. I must let the Holy Spirit of Jesus dwell in me. I must abide in Christ and offer every faculty of my nature freely and unselfishly to Him, to sanctify it for Himself. If Jesus is really to work through me, there must be within me an entire consecration of myself to Him, renewed moment by moment. It is only in the abiding that my life has real purpose and is being used exclusively for God's glory. It is Christ alone within me that is capable of moving and shaking this world, and bringing it into total submission to His rule.

As Christ works from within my heart, a simple believer, wondrous things happen for the sake of my heavenly Father. All my efforts, and deeds, and labors must be set aside and made holy in the grace of God for it is only Him within me that does anything good or accomplishes anything holy. I am merely a branch learning to submit to the Vine so that His life might flow through me and reap treasures for Himself. I must never forget that it is the Vine that works in the branch to produce the fruit. And this fruit is not only that of saving the lost, though it most certainly means that also, as I said, but this fruit is anything good that the Father brings about through the living branch, and as long as that branch remains connected to the Vine, great things are accomplished. But first I must fully consecrate my entire life to Him, I can't hold anything back from Him and I must allow Him to make me holy, to set me apart for His use exclusively. I am His absolutely in the broadest sense; I am His and only His. But there is a purifying work that goes on within me to enrich me for the labor, to make me fit to carry the life of Christ to others through whatever situation I find myself in. The Lord must first make me fit. I must be sanctified. I must be set apart. I must be made holy unto Him and it is in the preparation work that my true heart condition is revealed to Him and He sees me as I truly am. I must submit to Him. I must surrender all I am and all I will ever be. He takes those parts of me that are unfit and blesses them and makes them holy, fit for service, and then He uses me, a dead branch, and makes me come alive with His very own life flowing through me. But it is never about me. It is solely and unreservedly about Him. It is Christ in me, the hope of glory! Praise God!!