Seeking Jesus First - Sept. 8, 2023

Does The (loving) Word of God abide in you?

“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

If my mouth is not full of the (loving) Word of God, then how can my heart be full of God’s (loving) Word?

Jesus defined abiding in the vine as, “If you abide in me and my (loving) words abide in you.”

A few days ago we heard about “Game Changing Faith”. This is the kind of faith that asks and receives whatever it desires. (See John 15:7-9)

It is predicated on intimacy with Jesus and being full of His loving word which is facilitated by the ever-present Holy Spirit.

Today’s focus is having the word of God abide in us. This is something that His strength empowers us to do. We can abide in God’s loving word. This is not a fleshly work. It is a spiritual work. This is not about getting saved. It is about manifesting righteousness and the rewards of righteousness in our daily walk. Again, we are empowered to do this by God’s grace and with help from Holy Spirit.

The cool thing is that it is not difficult. But it takes faithfulness and self control which are generously supplied as the fruit of the spirit.

You are a tree of righteousness. Your roots go down into Christ Jesus and drink from the loving word of God. The Spirit of God floods our hearts with God’s love and produces the fruit of the spirit. As your oak of righteousness grows, it starts producing branches. Each of these branches is fruitful with leaves and produces strength and shade.

The branches can be characterized as areas of fruitfulness in your life.  Intimacy with God, Health, Giving, Good works, Relationships, Ministry, Business, Finances, etc. These can be things that we do naturally without even thinking or they can be an area that we have developed over time. But what I want to suggest to you is that you can begin growing a branch in an area simply by letting God’s loving words abide in you. You can focus your growth through getting into the loving word on a particular topic.

This is not weird or fleshly. We go to school to do this kind of thing. A doctor is a doctor because he studied to be one. An engineer is an engineer because she studied to be one. Just ask Holy Spirit what to focus your time on and begin studying a little bit every day.

Let God’s loving Word abide in you.

Choose your topic: Faith, Hope, Love, Money, Healing, Righteousness, Joy, Peace, Etc.

• Do a word study.
•  Find out how the word is defined.
•  Discover how the word is used in Scripture.
•  Look for significant uses of the word where the power of God was being  released.
• Pick out Scriptures that Holy Spirit highlights to you.
•  Begin to meditate on them.
•  Memorize them.
•  Personalize them.
•  Speak them to yourself throughout the day.
• Begin looking for ways to practice or apply the loving word in your walk.
•  Practice doing what the word says.
•  Share it with people around you.
• Start giving thanks for the manifestation of that word in your life.
•  Look for every way, big or small, that can be attributed to this word and give  thanks.
•  Give thanks even if you don’t see anything yet.
•  Ex. “LORD, I thank You for Your loving word. Thank you for manifesting this  word in my life. Thank you Holy Spirit for helping this word abide in me.   Thank you, Jesus. I count this word as a promise from You to me and I   believe I receive it so I can grow and bless others more.”

Abide in Christ Jesus and let His words abide in you, and you will ask what you desire and you shall receive it.