If My Words Remain In You

October 27, 2015

If My Words Remain In You

But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!

John 15:7

It may be interesting for you to take a poll of your Christian friends, those in your small group or Sunday School class, and ask how many can honestly say they have experienced the promise of this verse. How many have asked God for anything they wanted or needed, and experienced their request granted? Maybe you also want to ask, “If not, why not?”

Some, in the spirit of self-reflection, may suggest that they missed the first part of Jesus’ statement, “But if you remain in . . .” They may admit to not following closely with Jesus, and thus did not deserve to have their prayer request granted. Ouch! I believe that since we are saved by grace, we also walk with Christ, by grace. May I suggest that while it is important for the Christian to remain consciously aware of being in Christ, it is vitally important that the Christian let the words of Christ remain in them!

When the words of Christ remain in us, we become acutely aware that there is a huge difference between our perceived notions of the purpose of prayer, and God’s declared purpose for prayer. The common perception for prayer in our culture is to ask God to grant our requests, most of which are aimed at improving our life, and changing what we believe are unpleasant circumstances in our life. The declared purpose of God is that Christ may be formed in us. Your real life is hidden with Christ in God, and God is at work in you to bring you to the place, here and now, where you know to the very depths of our soul that what is true for Jesus is most assuredly true for you, the joint heir of Christ!

In my little book, First Think – Then Pray (available on Amazon Kindle), I use several of the Apostle Paul’s prayers to illustrate how we can pray as we remain in Christ, and as his words remain in us. In my walk with the Lord, I am learning more and more how helpful are the practices of contemplative prayer in positioning myself before the Lord so that He may form Christ within me. As I have before, I again encourage you to look to Gravity – a Center for Contemplative Activism, for help in appreciating the richness of contemplative prayer. Here is their site:

https://gravitycenter.com/practice/

Sē’lah

<><  <><  <><  <><

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.