Devotional
Abiding in Christ
Psalm 37:4 tells us “Delight yourself also in the LORD, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.” Matthew 7:7 states to “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” We see in Matthew 21:22 that “whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith” and in John 1 Jesus instructs us that if we abide in Him, and His words abide in us we can ask whatever we wish, and it will be done for us. I am sure you have heard these verses before, like I have many times, as standalone verses giving us confidence that the Lord will fulfill the desires of our hearts and do what we wish if we just ask. But the Lord is not a genie in a bottle, and having the belief God will give us what we want when we pray will only leave us feeling unheard and experiencing doubts in the Almighty good God.
It is crucial to understand that all these verses are 100% true, but they all depend on something we seem to often forget. We as God’s children are called to abide in Him as He abides within us. As you read this excerpt from John 15, focus on what is necessary for us to have our desires fulfilled “IF you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so, you will be My disciples.” Truly abiding in the Lord means that our thoughts and desires are aligned with Gods thoughts and desires for us. When we are seeking the Lord and His word and resting in His presence day in and day out, we start to desire what He wants for our lives. We begin to realize that His ways are higher than our ways, And His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, as said in Isaiah 55:9.
When we align ourselves with the Lord and are seeking Him, what we start to desire is His plans for our lives and not our own. (“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” 1 John 5:14) The Lord’s will for our lives is abundantly more than anything we can ask, seek, or imagine. Abiding in Christ allows our desires to transcend past trivial – I want to get good grades, I want a good husband one day, I want the best job making the most money, etc. We begin to desire what the Lord wants from us. He wants us to bear fruit and grow in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We begin to pray for boldness to share Him with the world as He desires us to do. We pray that His will be done, knowing that whatever God desires for us is so much better for our good and the growth of His kingdom. Abiding in the Lord through prayer, the reading of the gift that is the word of God, and continuing to pursue a Christ centered life helps us to want what God wants for us. When our desires are the same as Gods, when we ask the desires of our heart, they will be heard and fulfilled. Glory be to God the Almighty.
Haley Hedrick, HPU student
