One of the things God has taught me this year is the concept of abiding. There comes a point where God tells us not to do more works for Him, but to abide with Him. He may tell you to set the prayer request list aside for a while, and to even cease praising for a bit, and to just abide with him in your prayer closet. As you go through your day there will come an ever present sense of His nearness even as you concentrate on the affairs of the moment.

After you're saved God will take you through a time of purification. How long it lasts depends on the individual, but He takes us through experiences of cleansing and deliverance to remove the old dross and sinful habits. This never really ceases, but there comes a point where we've been delivered from most of the old life, and a transition is made to a focus on pruning experiences. These are life lessons, some of which can be quite tough. Job went through a doozy. Again, we move to the next grade when we pass the test. Otherwise we re-test again and again. But once we've learned our lessons successfully, we will have a foundation of dependability, knowlege, faith, and holiness that flows from the Holy Spirit. It's not a matter of earning, but submission.

Another area of pruning will involve removing the clutter from our lives. These are things that are not even sin, they just take our attention. Maybe God even gave them to us, or told us to take these things up (or at least gave us permission), but now He's telling us to clear the decks. What follows is abiding in the Vine. The Vine holds the life, and we the branches draw from it. But how clear is the channel? That's why we've been pruned. We've been pruned, and are bearing fruit, and now it's time to let the roots grow deeper and deeper. Fruit will be harvested in ever greater amounts, but not necessarily through working harder. Rather the Spirit flows through this person with less and less hinderance, and things are accomplished supernaturally.

The sermon you preach will be ever more annointed, and fruit will be harvested through you. That ministry will be more successful because you are standing aside more, and it's God operating ever more through you. The voice of the Spirit is heard ever more clearly, fewer mistakes are made, less time is wasted, and the harvest is greater each time.

Are you learning to abide? What exists in your life or church that is sin? What exists that is not sin, but it clutter? Is God taking you to the next level in your life, and in the life of your church, or are you and/or your church having to re-take the same tests over and over?

-- Anonymous, February 19, 2002