Quoting Paul, "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him." "The just shall live by faith." You gave yourself to God, to be His wholly, to serve and obey Him, and you took Christ as your Savior." SC 69 And there's not a person taking in these words that hasn't done that, I believe. "You could not yourself atone for your sins or change your heart; but having given yourself to God, you believe that He for Christ's sake did all this for you."
I know you believe this; there is no question about this in your mind. "By faith you became Christ's, and by faith you are to grow up in Him--by giving and taking." By what? By giving and taking." Is that what the branch does? Yes. What does the branch take? It takes the sap from the Vine; it also takes the sunshine from the same Source--from God. It's constantly taking. And then what does it do in turn? 'By giving and taking." Now notice. "You are to give all,--your heart, your will, your service,--give yourself to Him to obey all His requirements; and you must take all."
But notice, the Vine determines the amount! And just the amount the Vine is ready to give, is the amount we are to take. Why? Because that's the amount the Vine knows we need in order to bear the particular kind of fruit we're supposed to bear.
Now notice; "and you must take all,--Christ, the fullness of all blessing, to abide in your heart, to be your Strength, your Righteousness, your everlasting Helper,--to give you power to obey."
Now if we abide, we are to walk even as He walked. But we are not to walk in our own strength. We are to walk in His strength because he abides and He gives us the power to actually walk even as He walked. It isn't something that we can do by effort--not in any sense of the word.
Abiding is without question the most difficult state of the Christian life. It is not difficult for me to surrender my life to Christ. It is not difficult for me to accept Christ. But to abide is very difficult.
Now can you think of any reason why this is so? Probably one of the greatest reasons is that most of us try to make this a mental act. But notice, while the surrender that comes when I first accept Christ is a mental process, for God appeals to my thinking mind and I accept Him mentally, abiding goes deeper and affects one of the most difficult parts of our living. Did you ever have to wait for your wife while she was shopping? It was difficult to "abide" while she was shopping, wasn't it? You stood there gritting your teeth and saying "why is it taking her so long to buy a pair of shoes? And this can be just as hard for a lady as a man. She says, "Why does it take you so long to shave, anyway?"
Waiting for the Lord, letting something rest with Him is also a very, very difficult thing. Why? Because it touches the emotional part of our being, not just the intellect. It would help if we could honestly say while waiting, "Of course I would want to be particular, too, if I were in there buying a pair of shoes." But we don't respond like that; we simply feel hurt in our emotions and get all tense. You see, the real problem is that abiding touches the feelings.
This has been a pretty heavy study, you may want to read it over a few times to really get the meaning. It is worth our time to understand these things as it will help us on our journey to heaven.
I pray that you will follow on with the studies to know the Lord and understand His sill in your life.
Grandma Joan
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