ABIDING IN THE VINE — Tom Anglin

“The primary business I must attend to every day is to fellowship with the Lord. The first concern is not how much I might serve the Lord, but how my inner man might be nourished. I may share the truth with the unconverted; I may try to encourage believers; I may relieve the distressed; or I may, in other ways, seek to behave as a child of God; yet, not being happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, may result in this work being done in a wrong spirit.”

— George Müller

John 15:4 "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

There will be times in our pursuit of God, that we will trip and fall! Yes, I am talking about falling to sin! It is ugly, but it happens, and prayerfully less and less! The temptation is to stay down. Never! Call on the name of Jesus and extend your hand to His! He is there to help you back up to continue your pursuit of Him! What we need to learn is, to constantly abide in the consciousness of His presence and practice His presence, moment by moment! In doing so, we will stumble less and less. The fellowship will grow so sweet that we will begin to lose consciousness of our fleshly desires.

It is only in our constant abiding in Jesus, that we can produce the fruit of His Spirit, which is: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those [who are] Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.“ Gal 5:23 &24 NKJV

Here is what happens if we do not constantly abide in Jesus: “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told [you] in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Gal 5:19-24 NKJV

What an incredible contrast between the two types of fruit! The choice is clear: abide continually in Christ! May the Lord help us to perfect our pursuit of Him!

Every blessing!

—Tom