How to Abide Practicing the Inner Life
This concluding study must sum up and make practical what has preceded. The question is: Am I practicing this wonderful life made available to me? In the Vine-and-Branch teaching Jesus gave just one word of command — Abide. All our responsibility for maintaining this inner, vital relationship to Him is compressed into this one word. To abide, continue, remain in this unbroken life union with Him — this is the simple secret of His realizing His life in us. Well assured that He will do His part, what is our part? We pause to remind ourselves that God instituted His plan of redemption by coming to live in and express Himself through a human body. Christ was “the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” He has been living in human bodies ever since. Now it is our body He has chosen to live in and express Himself through. He wants our generation to see and know “the Godhead bodily.”
Hence our great responsibility to Abide. Consider these eight essentials to an Abiding Life, by them to prove this life both practical and workable, satisfying both to Him and to us:
1. Know that Christ Lives in You. “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. By faith, not by feeling. Remember His word from the Glory, “If any man hear My voice and open the door (to his inner life) I will come into him.” By saving faith He came in. “As many as received Him,” as you receive a guest by opening the door to him. So — “He that hath the Son hath life.” To be a Christian is to have Christ in personal possession. Think of it, a part of one’s own person! This fact is basic to all New Testament living.
2. Cultivate the Consciousness of His Presence. “Christ liveth in me.” Paul knew it — new it was a daily, practical fact. Since He is too deep down for feeling, we must do much consciously to realize His presence. Talk to Him. Recall His presence during the day. Especially would we urge the forming of this habit: Never rise from your bed till you have assured yourself for the day, “Christ lives in me.” Likewise, since the Holy Spirit lives in you, reflect with gratitude upon His willingness to leave His home in Glory to make His home in you. Fervently thank Him for living in you. Form the habit of talking to Him and making Him real to you for the day. Invite Him to take over.
3. Adjust All Your Living to His Presence. Set one aim before you: to be “well-pleasing to Him.” It’s a new way of living. You’ve taken another Person into your life. Let your life revolve around Him; study how to please Him. Consider His tastes, His likes and dislikes. Allow nothing distasteful to Him. Life for you will become sweet and satisfying.
4. Steadfastly Refuse Every Contact Breaker. As the electrician studies the laws of electricity and meets every condition for its constant flow, eagerly eliminating everything that stops that flow, so must we learn to eliminate every least thing that would hinder the flow of Christ’s life in and through us.
“Severed from Me, ye can do nothing.” Every contact breaker must go. Little things, seemingly harmless habits, if they lead to fruitless lives — courageously eliminate as the price of this priceless life.
5. Fill Mind and Heart with His Word. “If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you.” A person’s words are akin to the person himself. When I am away from my wife, by her words she comes renewedly into my life and her love encourages me. So the Christian. Open your Bible with the prayer, “Quicken Thou me according to Thy word.” Close it with the praise, “Thy word hath quickened me.” His Word makes real His love to us and His presence in us. Never a day without His Word!
6. Live a Life of Prayer. Prayer is far more than asking, than getting things from God — that is the childhood of prayer. Prayer is the natural expression of the abiding life. Prayer is communion, as between lovers; we resort to the place of prayer because we want Him. Yet more; the indwelling Spirit longs to make intercession in us. Prayer is the out-breathing of the Abiding Life.
7. Walk in the Spirit. The Adam-life is ever with us. But God’s guarantee of deliverance is this: “Walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” Trust God with your flesh problem. You do the walking; the Spirit will do the handling — “you will not.” Instead, out will come the fruit of a Christ-flavored life — His love, His joy, His peace, the qualities that marked His Spirit-filled life. These are the satisfying evidences as well as gratifying rewards of the Abiding life.
The act of walking implies, involves and expresses yieldedness. As you walk, you are both abiding and yielding (the combined secret of the Vine-and-branch relationship and the Head-and-body partnership).
8. Draw Moment-by-moment Upon the Inliving Christ. He abides in you to be your resource, the practical resource, all-sufficient for every moment’s living, whatever your situation and whatever your need. The branch has no life in itself; neither have you. When there appear impatience, unkindness, ill-will, lack of love, of joy, of peace, these are indicators that something has gone wrong. The current is off. You are not abiding; you are drawing upon your own self-life. Those qualities are — you. But as we abide and draw upon Him, we will reproduce and perpetuate the life of Christ — His life poured through us.
We would call these the eight directives for the Abiding Life, thus to arrive at genuine, non-effort New Testament living. Should we disregard any one of these, we are apt to find our spiritual life-line cut; then we must go on our own. If we heed the laws of health and growth in other departments of life, how much more in the priceless things of the Spirit.
An Unchoked Channel. As a branch of Christ the Vine, you are merely a channel for the flow of His life. Think of yourself as such. Live as such.
“Channels only, blessed Master, But with all Thy wondrous power Flowing through us, Thou canst use us Every day and every hour.”
How far removed is this from trying to live a Christian life ourselves! We cannot live such a life; it is beyond our powers. Instead, we are careful to be a clear channel, cleansed unobstructed, chosen by Him and honored by Him to be the outlet upon earth of His abundant life. Honor indeed!
Some years ago, a town nestling under the Rocky Mountains drew its water supply from a lake located well up on the mountainside. One morning, a housewife opened her faucet, but no water came. Others had the same experience. No water! Men climbed the mountain to examine the lake; but it was just as full as ever. Then someone suggested they examine the supply pipe. As they did so, presently they came upon a plug maliciously driven into the pipeline. That was it! Small, so very small, almost insignificant in itself, yet it held back the entire supply of the lake, abundant as it was.
Like the lake, a reservoir rich and full, God’s grace is just as abundant as in the days of a Paul, a Peter and a John. Friend, do you have a plug in your life, a small something defeating His life through you? Look for it. Courageously remove it. In this way and this way only, can you live a full-orbed New Testament life, satisfying to yourself, to your neighbor, and to our God.
From "New Testament Living" by Norman B. Harrison
-Daniel |