I Feel the tension! I want to abound in good works, but I know they come out 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.”

2 Cor 9:8 “And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”

Perhapes the tension if there is one is resolved in Mark 1:17 “ Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men” We abide in Him which leads to abounding in Him!

That call for Simon and Andrew must have been amazing – a Rabbi was inviting them, two humble uneducated fishermen, to be with Him!

Rabbi – apprenticeship – be with them 24/7, become like them and do what they did.

What does it mean to be with Jesus, to abide with him? It is surely to be constantly aware of him and his presence and attentive to his voice. The night before his death, Jesus made it clear how John 14:6 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever.

Abide in me – is not asking to do something you are not already doing! We all abide in something!

• Social media – make us angry, anxious, arrogant, simplistic and distracted
• Streaming – lustful, restless, bored, never present
• Hedonism – pursuit of pleasure – drink, food, sex

There are loads of other time wasters we can abide in that will not help us abound!

Abiding in him in the Spirit will form in us love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Abiding therefore is about our emotional home – where we return to in our quiet moments. Learning to abide in Christ is retraining the mind to turn God into a habit. To change where our mind goes without thinking about it!

“The undirected mind tends towards chaos” – is what one psychologist with an unpronounceable name called Psychic entropy.

Brother Lawrence was a dishwasher in a Parisian monastery in the 17^th C. Like Brother Lawrence, we can retrain our minds and hearts to practice the presence of God. Somehow in the chaos, noise and busyness of the kitchen, he made abiding in Him his life.

“The time of busyness does not with me differ from the time of prayer. And in the noise and clatter of the kitchen while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees before the blessed Sacrament“

 He was a catholic so the blessed sacrament – the Lord’s supper to us, was a huge deal.

Dallas Willard said this abiding in Christ is the fundamental secret of caring for our souls.

Our part in practicing the presence of God is to direct and redirect our minds constantly to Him. In the early time of our practicing we may well be challenged by our burdensome habits of dwelling on things less than God. But these are habits, not the law of gravity and can be broken. A new grace filled habit will replace the former ones as we take intentional steps…. Soon our minds will return to God as the needle of a compass constantly returns to north.

New habits that grow easier as the habit becomes fixed.

John Mark Comer puts it like this – The more you pray, the more you think to pray.

I love the story of the old man who when asked what he was doing sitting alone for hours in a church “I look at him and he looks at me and we are happy”

Each day is a new day, fresh mercies fresh grace. If we are to start the day abiding in Christ, we need to amake a practice of daily starting the day with Jesus. Although I am not a morning person at all, there is no better way to start the day than with Jesus.

Jesus said “when you pray, go into your room and when you have shut your door pray to the father who is in the secret place. And your father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

Room there is tameion variously translated elsewhere as closet or storeroom. Where is your tameion?

In the pain of last year I found it difficult to concentrate on praying in our home – I had to prayer walk in a nearby woods.

What’s that secret place like at the moment for you – I discovered decades ago I go through phases in my secret place times and that is okay.

Here are 5 different Quiet Time Phases taken from Stephen D.Eyre’s chapter Quiet Time Dynamics in Hear the Word IVP (1990)

Which phase are you in at the moment? Is it helping you abide or hindering?

If you want to learn more about abiding in Christ and then abounding, I highly recommend John Mark Comer’s Practicing the Way (Amazon Affiliate link)