My New Position (Part 1)

This holiday vacation was much needed for me.  Like a car, I needed a spiritual tune-up.  God, like a trustworthy mechanic, was more than eager to help.  What were the symptoms of my condition?

• My sense of duty for God was high but my love for Him was low.


• My heart was growing insensitive and impatient with people and with God's ways.


• I was carrying burdens and feeling anxieties God never intended for me to carry.


• I had forgotten or was ignoring God's promises which left my faith vulnerable and my heart unguarded.

Then I began a slow study of John 15 and these verses grabbed my soul:

⁴Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. ⁵"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.

My position is NOT to worry, NOT to carry heavy burdens.  My position is to remain (or "abide") in Christ.  My position is to draw life FROM Him and then give TO others. When I draw on my own reserves, I will dry up, wither, worry, and waste away.  But His reserves are limitless and unending (see John 7:38) and my position is to receive everything from Him.

These words from Andrew Murray's classic, Abide in Christ, really spoke to me:

"God had destined [me] to something better than short-lived blessedness, to be enjoyed only in times of special prayer, and then to pass away ... He has prepared for [me] an abiding dwelling with Himself, where [my] whole life and every moment of it might be spent, where the work of [my] daily life might be done, and where all the while [I] might be enjoying unbroken communion with Him."

Murray goes on to say that "the whole Christian life depends on the clear consciousness of our position in Christ."

This is how this is translating in my life:

1) I begin each day with a yielding of myself to Christ. I must remind myself that I am100% dependent on Him and Him only, surrendering my self-confidence to Him as my Source, my Vine.

2) I remind myself constantly that I am IN Christ. The world wants to get me out of position.  God simply wants me to realize my position: in Christ I am fully accepted, fully righteous, and fully His.

3) I look to where God is working in me and cooperate. I don't have to make things happen. I don't have to force things.  God is working, stirring and moving.  I simply wait, watch, and discover God's work.  When I pray now, I seek to discern how and where God is working.  When I read the Bible, I read not looking for mere information, but looking to see what stirs my spirit in God's direction for I am IN Christ.