GROW UP INTO HIM - Pt. 2

ABIDING IN CHRIST

What does this mean? The exhortation of Apostle Jude best deals with this. In Jude 1:21, he says Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

When one of the teachers of the law, a Pharisee, asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, He said to him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

When Jesus gave the new commandment in John 13:34, it was still the same, the caveat was that the love must now be the love of God. Not emotional, not conditional but the love of God which only the Holy Spirit produces.

Now, God will not require of us what we are incapable of. That is why when we got born again, the tools we need to obey Him were given to us. He gave us a measure of faith (Romans 12:3) with which we received His love into our recreated human spirits (Romans 5:5).

Understand something about this love however, it is first towards God and then towards man. Love for God is what makes the believer ALWAYS put God first in all things. That is how come the believer seeks to do what God wants, not what is convenient or what the flesh wants (which is easy). 

If you do not put God first, you will not love the other person except it is convenient but God expects you to do it at all times. Emotional love cannot do this; God’s love does it because it always puts God first, to please Him.

Abiding in Christ is abiding in this love, living and walking in it. Don’t forget, God is love (1 John 4: 8) and Christ is the embodiment of who God is. If you put God first in all things notwithstanding the cost of doing so, it is because you are allowing the love He has put in you to find expression. When you do this, you will never be a law breaker. You will do everything the word says to do because you put God first.

Afterall, how did Jesus say we will express our love for Him? Very clearly in John 14:15 Jesus said if you love me, keep my commandment. We abide in Christ when we obey His word, when we live our lives in line with what it teaches. Our love for God is shown to Him and to all when we live according to His word.

GOD’S WORD ABIDING IN YOU

What does it mean for God’s word to abide in you? A whole book can be written on this but we do not have the luxury of that in this piece. Best and simply put, the instruction of God to Joshua in Joshua 1:8 explains this: This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shall meditate therein day and night, that thou may observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shall make thy way prosperous, and then thou shall have good success. This was said before the bible was compiled, if it was after, it would have read 'this entire bible shall not depart....'.

Most times, we reference this text when we are desirous of material gain and financial success alone, but God gave Joshua this instruction regarding kingdom purpose in entirety.  

In living by this verse, we should keep in mind that it is what we have come to know that we can meditate on. And to know, we must study and to study, our attention is required. If we will love God the way He expects us to (that is, abide in Christ), daily study and continuous meditation on God’s word are pre-requisites for us and not options. The same goes for prayer and every other thing that is good and godly as laid out in God’s word.

Now, what does the word of God do when it abides in us? It helps us to build our faith, the measure that God gave us at salvation. Romans 10:17 says so then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Abiding in Christ gives us the opportunity to grow our faith and both are interdependent, not mutually exclusive. Growing our faith gives us the opportunity to walk like Jesus walked here on earth, the opportunity to ask the Father always and have Him do what you ask.

Think about it, what is it that we can achieve for God without having to have asked for something? Developing this ability to ask and have Him do is what determines our success in life, it is what determines if we will fulfill God’s purpose for us in His kingdom. We must work at it; taking a cue from what Christ said.

Abide in Him and let His word abide in you. The more this works for you, the more you reflect who Jesus is in whatever and wherever God has placed you.

1 CORINTHIANS 13:13

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. These three are required for us to conform to Jesus’ image here on earth. Love (charity) is called the greatest because it is the only one that will exist into eternity.

Faith is not needed in heaven as well as hope, for then we would have seen heaven and we would have seen God. You only believe for what is not in your reality and you only hope for what you have not seen (Romans 8:24).

We can say generally that walking in love gets our needs met and we will be correct because when we walk in the God kind of love, we will put Him first. When we put Him first, we will seek Him and we seek Him by studying His word, praying and doing as He says. When we seek Him because we put Him first we will obey the word and this builds our faith with which we receive everything we ask of God.

But more specifically, faith (the God kind of faith) is what gets our needs met. Without it, we cannot please God (Hebrews 11:6), without it, we cannot receive anything from God (James 1:7), without it we cannot even walk in the love that has been shed abroad in our hearts. The bottom line is, without growing and walking in the God kind of faith, becoming more like Jesus is not possible.

The God kind of faith is beyond positive confession. The God kind of faith has nothing to do with believing in yourself. The God kind of faith has nothing to do with the force of the universe (whatever that may mean), the constellations or elements, all of which are the works of God’s hands. The God kind of faith is produced in us only by God and this He does through His word.

Other kinds of faith would be limited in what they can do. Faith in yourself is limited to what you can do, faith in the universe is limited to whatever nature permits. Faith in the elements only gets you help from the kingdom of darkness which is not help indeed but idolatrous traps to position you for Satan’s destruction.

The God kind of faith is your access to God’s possibility which is ALL possibilities. Only what God cannot do is what it will not achieve and God can do all things.

We must fulfill our destinies in God, we must grow up into Christ in this very thing. Folks, let’s get to work!

Meditate on these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all (1 Timothy 4:15).

Pastor Gboye Omolayo is the Resident Pastor of Church@Allen, Allen TX, USA. He is a prolific writer and preacher who believes the efficacy of the word of God and the potency of the works of the Holy Spirit are still available to the Church today, as were at the Church’s infancy. He is the publisher of this blog.