Tag: freedom

The Fruitful Place of Abiding in Jesus

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

Where do we find ourselves today? Are we happy with our circumstances? Are we challenged by our trials? Are we frozen by our fears? These questions are irrelevant if we are abiding in Jesus. If we follow His command to abide in Me, we will not have a care about where we are, what we are doing or what is going on around us. In this place of abiding, we will find our lives filled with the perfect joy, strength and peace of the Lord. Whatever we find ourselves doing will be completely satisfying and will bear much fruit. What freedom and power we find when we abide in Our Savior!!

On the other hand, if we are leaning on the world or on our own natural abilities, we soon find out how fearful and impotent we are. Just as the passage suggests, we are destined to experience a withering away when we separate ourselves from the True Vine. We are sure to enter into a poor, fruitless condition. Why would we ever consider living in any other way except fully dependent on the True Vine?

Let us bring our fears to the Lord and let Him deal with them. Let us vanquish the giants in our lives in the name of the Lord. Let us bow in awe and wonder before Almighty God, acknowledging His great power and might. Let us become the mighty warriors that He has created us to be.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we bow in awe and wonder before You. We acknowledge and thank You for the fullness of the joy and the power that we receive when we abide in Your Son. We pray for the strength to place all of our fears and worries at Your feet. We ask for the courage to move forward knowing that all things are possible when we place our trust in Our Savior. May we always seek the grace, nourishment and strength that we need from our all-sufficient source, Jesus Christ. We ask all these things in His precious, holy and mighty name.

Sin No Longer Rules When Jesus Arrives

John 8:34
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.

In Ephesians, Paul taught that before we accepted Our Savior that we all walked the course of the world, following the spirit that is at work in the lives of the disobedient. Through the teachings of Paul and John in the Holy Word, we learn that Jesus is the only way that we can attain freedom from the slavery of sin that we have been born into.

It is through Jesus Christ that we have victory over our sins. Once we have accepted Jesus as Our Savior, He comes to dwell within us. With the presence of His Holy Spirit within us, we are set free from the bonds of slavery of sin. Sin is no longer the ruler in our house, Jesus Christ is.

Because our freedom of choice is never taken away, our flesh constantly battles to take control over our lives and Satan constantly works to deceive us in an effort to make us slaves to sin again. But Jesus Christ stands with us and, in accordance with His promises, He perfects His strength in our weaknesses and He provides victory over all evil. He provides all that we need to overcome our sins.

Let us seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit as we face the challenges associated with our walk of sanctification. Let us choose to submit to the urgings of the Holy Spirit each time our flesh and the enemy try to take us off our pathway to holiness. Let rejoice in our victory over sin through Jesus Christ as we strive to be holy as Our Savior is holy.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your perfect love that provided Your Son to free us from the slavery of sin. We praise the name of Jesus for taking on all sin so that we may become heirs to Your holy kingdom. We ask forgiveness for all the times that we have chosen to offend You through our sins. We repent of these sins and ask for the fullness of the promise of Jesus to perfect His strength in our weakness. We pray for the grace to surrender today and live forever as bond servants to Our Savior. We ask all these things in the precious, holy and mighty name of Our Blessed Hope and Assurance, Jesus Christ.