Hosanna Restoration Church

How are we going to grow? How can we hope to thrive? How will we stand? How can we overcome? How can anyone really be and do what Jesus promised we would? Note the word here is promised and not suggested. Actually He commanded it! Jesus said that abiding in Him would unlock the door to the Fathers blessing flow.

A brief definition of abide is to wait for: await: to endure without yielding: to remain stable or in a fixed state: to continue in a place: stay. Now the truth is that even though we may not always do all of this perfectly, we can be sure that Jesus does abide perfectly. The way He does what He does paves the way for us to increase in our ability to abide. If we will only wait for Him a little, He will perform a lot, and that in turn serves to increase our staying power.

One of the greatest tools that I believe the enemy uses in his attempt to separate us from Christ is information. When we are tricked into paying more attention to information than we are to revelation our faith begins to shut down. Most of you who read this are reading it on a computer, so let me use a computer illustration.

I think we have all had the experience of a computer locking up and leaving us sitting looking at a screen we can do nothing with. This is most often caused by an information overload. We have more programs running than we have memory to handle it. The solution is to either not have so much running or to add memory.

The very same thing often happens to Christians. We allow more information than we have faith to handle. For instance, when someone asks for prayer we may be confident that God can and will do anything we ask. But then as the person tells us just how sick they are or what a doctor has said or how others have prayed with no success, each bit of information attacks our confidence, until we may pray just hoping instead of knowing! Abiding in Jesus can and will override information overload.

Another thing that I often see people do is try and figure out logically how it could all work, or if God really said it, or if Jesus really meant what He said. Remember the Pharisees were full of information. They were so full of information that they refused to believe that Jesus was the one they were in need of. They missed the opportunity to abide in Him.

What we need is to know Him and the one He sent. The Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth. Our first choice must always be to abide in Him. When you feel overloaded, overwhelmed, confused, or abused; simply abide in Him. Cling tightly to Him and remember that He abides in you!