I have spent a good chunk of my life wondering what it truly means to live for Jesus. Since little on I was watching people to see what that looked like in someone’s life. In the last three years Peter and I have approached God a little differently and I think I have a little bit of a better grasp on what a Jesus filled life looks like. I am not perfect by any means nor do I feel like I have arrived at this higher platform of Christianity, I just feel that the things I have been doing in the last three years have brought me to a closer relationship with Jesus than the rest of my life.
We recently were able to go back and be chaplains at the camp we met at. This was the message that I shared that week. It started when I heard this interview from David Platt and he shared three words about living for God. The three words were abide, surrender, and rest. I really felt drawn to those words because these are words that Peter and I have really been working on in our lives.
This blog post will focus on abiding and the next one will be surrender and the last one will be rest.
Abide
Definition: (of a feeling or a memory) continue without fading or being lost.
synonyms: continue, remain, survive, last, persist, stay, live on
“the memory of our parting will abide”
My definition of abiding means living with Christ and remembering him in our daily life. When I think of how to do that, I think of your common Sunday school answers: read the Bible, pray, worship, and go to church. Most of my life I had been doing those things, but not in a way that was fervent.
Reading the Bible
For the majority of my life, I have taken the Bible in using only bits and pieces. I would read the parts of the Bible that I needed to complete for a Bible study or devotions without reading the Bible through in its entirety. Peter and I felt convicted to read it through and we signed up for a one year plan. After reading God’s Word all the way through I realized how much of his character I was missing out on. I felt like I knew God more than when I was just taking bits and pieces of His Word.
Here are some downfalls to not reading The Bible all the way through:
- We skip chapters that are challenging
- I never wanted to dive into Revelation or Judges because they intimidated me. The thing is, God gave us the entire Bible to reveal himself to us, not just the parts of the Bible I thought were pleasing to read.
- We put God in a box by only taking from passages that give us good feelings
- We don’t always want to hear about God’s judgement and wrath. We want to hear about his grace and mercy but the Bible speaks on both and we need to hear both.
- God reveals himself and speaks to us while we are in His Word.
- There have been so many times that I have been reading the Word and God has spoken to me through it. I have just felt like I knew the answer to a question that I was wondering about or I just felt a knowing that God wanted me to read this passage right at this time.
- See The Bible as one story instead of many random pieces
- The entire Bible fits together. It is one big story and we need to look at it that way instead of a bunch of random pieces.
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ-Romans 10:17
I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Psalm 119:11
The Center for Bible Engagement did a study on people who read the Bible four or more times a week:
- 228% more likely to share their faith with others
- 407% more likely to memorize scripture
- 59% less likely to view pornography
- 30% less likely to struggle with loneliness
They also said that the lives of Christians who do not engage the Bible most days of the week are statistically the same as the lives of nonbelievers. Back to the Bible Research Page
There is power in God’s Word and we need to engage it fully and consistently.
Prayer
This year is our year of prayer. We have been watching sermons and doing research on prayer. What I have found is that God wants us to be in prayer with Him. It is part of our act of surrender and giving our lives to God.
These quotes hit me between the eyes early on in the year:
To not pray is to silently declare that you have more power over your situation than Jesus does- Dad Tired Podcast
Prayerlessness is Pride- David Platt
Wow! When we go about our lives without inviting God in through prayer, we are telling Him that we want to be in charge. Consistent, humble prayer puts us in a position to be used by God instead of just asking God for our wants and needs.
In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. Psalm 5:3
I have used a prayer journal and have been loving it because it reminds me of all the things I want and need to pray for. I have also been using this form of prayer so that I come humbly before God instead of trying to use my own agenda.
Praise and Adoration
Repentance
Ask
Yield
(P): When we start our prayers with praise and adoration we tell God who He is and what He deserves. He deserves ultimate praise!
(R): Then we need to acknowledge our brokenness before Him and ask for forgiveness and restoration.
(A) Then we can ask our creator for help with family, friends, and problems in our own lives.
(Y) Lastly, we yield our lives to God and acknowledge that He ultimately is in charge and we want to follow His will.
When we set up prayer to exalt God instead of trying to receive our own interests, God works through us so much more abundantly than when we just put up selfish prayers.
Worship
The last point I wanted to talk about in abiding is worship. God is wonderful and deserves worship from us all day long! A form of worship that we have been doing is trying to cut things out of our lives that aren’t beneficial and adding things into our life that are. We have been trying to do less television and more Bible reading. We have been watching sermons instead of television series. Our family tries to do praise and worship time and reading The Bible at meals. I love to have hymns and praise and worship music going in our home throughout the day. God is deserving of our worship and we should find activities that help us meditate on Him all day long.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Romans 12:1
When we are serious about studying God’s word, pray to him unselfishly, and give him our worship and praise throughout the day, we are so much more in tune to God’s truths. We are less susceptible to the ways of the world because we are taking in more of God’s truths instead of what the world tells us is true.
I challenge you to get on a Bible reading plan and keep doing it over and over again. Let God’s word lead your life and then go before him humbly knowing that He is Lord of your life. You will be amazed at the ways he can use us to increase his kingdom!