abiding in ministry

Opening Prayer: Abide in me and I will abide in you.

Scripture: John 15:1-11

Journal: What does God’s invitation for you to abide in him do within you today?  How will you take him up on his invitation? 

Reflection: We ministers of the Gospel, how we are in danger of getting into a condition of work, work, work!  And we pray over it, but the freshness and buoyancy and joy of the heavenly life are not always present.  Let us seek to understand that the life of the branch is a life of much fruit, because it is a life rooted in Christ, the living, heavenly Vine.

     Let us again ask: what has the branch to do?  You know that precious, inexhaustible word that Christ used: “Abide.”  Your life is to be an abiding life.  And how is this abiding to be?  It is to be just like the branch in the vine, abiding every minute of the day.  There are the branches, in close communion, in unbroken communion, with the vine, from January to December.  And cannot I live every day—it is to me an almost terrible thing that we should ask the question—cannot I live in abiding communion with the heavenly Vine?

     You say: “But I am so much occupied with other things.”

     You may have ten hours’ hard work daily, during which your brain has to be occupied with temporal things; God orders it so.  But the abiding work is the work of the heart, not the brain, the work of the heart clinging to and resting in Jesus, a work in which the Holy Spirit links us to Christ Jesus.  Oh, do believe that deeper down than the brain, deep down in the inner life, you can abide in Christ, so that every moment you are free the consciousness will Come: “Blessed Jesus, I am still in thee.” (Absolute Surrender and Other Addresses by Andrew Murray)

Prayer

Closing Prayer: You are the vine, Lord Jesus, and I am just a branch.  Help me to remember that today, and to live my life abiding in you.  Amen.