How do I go deeper with abiding?
As a ministry, we get so many questions like this. Many people set out excited to start their abiding relationship with Christ, but end up hitting roadblocks. You may have tried abiding for a week or so and find yourself asking the following questions: How to I start hearing from God? How do I approach my Bible study so that it personally impacts my life and the promises that God gives me? How do I go beyond the surface level in my relationship with Christ?
If this is where you are, keep reading! There is an abundance of joy to be found in an abiding relationship with Christ and you are on the path to discovering it for yourself. You may hit roadblocks, but keep going! You will hear God’s voice and He will help you grow if you stick with it. Each day it will get easier, sweeter, and more fun!
Our goal is to help you with this as much as possible, and so this week we will be walking through a few of the most common abiding struggles and how to overcome them. So let’s get started:
There are four key aspects of abiding which are important to keep in mind:
1. It’s not intellectual
2. God is going to speak to you.
3. You have to receive it
4. It’s not a checklist!
Abiding means living with God. This is important to zero in on because it really changes how you approach your daily devotions. If abiding is living with God, that means that it is relational, not intellectual. While it is not unimportant to learn about God, an abiding relationship is much more than that. More than simply learning about God, you are on a journey to know Him personally. You will learn to hear His voice, experience His love, and see His supernatural work in your life! And this means that listening to what He is saying to you is key. As you abide with God, you have to truly listen to Him and allow Him to speak into your life and your decisions. Allow Him to speak into your situation and process on it. Don’t ignore His personal word for you! In addition to listening to God, you also have to be willing to receive the revelation God gives you, or it will have no effect on your life. Receive what He says, then pursue it. In order to get the most out of abiding, you have to be a go getter. Stay with the truth He has spoken to you. He will continue to reveal it to you as you pursue it.
Finally, don’t approach abiding as a checklist, or something you have to do. Your relationship with Christ is just that—a relationship! As soon as you get caught up in the to-do list of your devotions, you lose the that dialogue that drives true relationship. Your job is to stick with Christ, listen to His word, and receive it. As you pursue Him, He will become your sufficiency, giving you the strength and desire to go deeper.
In other words, if you’re abiding on something, but still feel that you haven’t received any revelation, don’t despair. It just means you’re not finished processing it yet. If you’re an intellect, you may be tempted to quit because it seems like nothing is happening; you know the concept intellectually, but it’s not making a difference in your life. This is just because you haven’t experienced it yet. Stick with it. Christ will be your sufficiency; the power comes from Him and He will sustain you.
You may now be thinking, “Okay, I get that I need to let go of the intellectual and pursue Christ. But what does that look like in practice?” Let’s dig into that:
Have a heart for truth.
John 16: 13-15
“13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify Me because it is from Me that He will receive what He will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is Mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from Me what He will make known to You.”
The Holy Spirit’s role is to guide you into everything that is true. In other words, He guides you into God’s truth—His best! The word for truth here refers not just to theological truth, but rather all truth about you and the situations you face. Finding this personal truth is why you are abiding. As you abide, your heart ought to be seeking what is true. If you are skeptical about something, that’s okay. Your role is to keep seeking God. As you do, He will show you truth. Again, this is not just intellectual truth, but experiential truth. Experiential truth is what creates heart transformation. It is something you learn personally with God, and there is no limitation on how He can work! Often, He teaches you truth about your heart as He shows you the way through your current situation. This heart transformation will help you to understand how to live and work in your current situation, and enjoy it along the way!
God is your teacher.
Psalm 25:4-6
4 Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. 5 Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long. 6 Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.
According to this psalm, God is the One showing the way. The word “teach” here is purposeful. Christ is our Teacher. Anyone who has been a teacher will know that when you first teach students something, they often don’t understand it straightaway. As a teacher, you wouldn’t go to those students and say, “Well, you get and F, and that’s that.” No, instead you would say, “It’s okay. Stick with it. Come to class, do your homework, ask your questions. My job is to teach you how to work through failure and how to learn.” God does the same with us. He says, “Stick with Me, and I’ll teach you how to walk this path.” As with any other subject you learned in school, abiding is a process, and you have to start out with the fundamentals. You learn the basics first in order to lay a foundation for everything else God is going to teach you. As God lays out the foundations for you, He reveals more of Himself and raises you up to be ready to receive the next thing. Abiding is a process. Right now, you may be in the first grade on some spiritual subjects. And that’s okay. This is particularly important to emphasize because the church tends to be judgmental. They say you should operate in a certain way, that to be a good Christian you must be certain about X, Y, and Z. But God says the opposite. God says it’s okay that you’re in the first grade on some things. There’s no rush. Some students get it straight away and others take a long time, but God says both are equally valuable, and He promises to get both to the truth by teaching them His way, in His timing. Don’t leave class until you experience what God is showing you. If you do, you’re going to fall short and never experience what He has for you. God says He will teach us and that it’s okay to fail. Instead of judging ourselves when we fail, our hearts ought to be seeking His truth.
God is faithful.
Proverbs 3: 1-8
1 My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, 2 for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. 3 Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. 4 So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. 7 Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. 8 It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.
In these verses, God tells us to bind steadfast love and faithfulness around our necks, and to write them on the tablets of our hearts. Steadfast love refers to covenant loyalty—God is loyal to His covenant. He’s going to show you the very best: His abundant life. This does not mean that your life will be absent of trouble. Rather, covenant loyalty reveals God’s character. He is faithful and can be trusted. His word is true for all of time. As He reveals His character to you, bind it around your neck and write it on your heart. Make your starting point in life the truth that you serve a faithful God. You may be facing a problem, but God is faithful. From there, God will teach you step by step. Proverbs tells you that He guides your steps. This phrase is used very intentionally. This abiding process is a path, not a destination. As humans, we often ask binary questions of God. “Should I do this or that?” Instead, our desire ought to be to know God’s will. “God, what do You have to say to me? I’ll receive what you have to say and follow you step by step as You guide me.” The whole concept of prayer has been distorted by the church in this way. We have learned to say: “God, would you do this? Let me know when you do.” But God says there’s more to it. It’s a path and we must walk in it.
He makes the statement: “Do not be wise in your own eyes.” As He guides you into truth, it’s going to be a teaching process. Don’t try to figure it out by yourself —don’t be wise in your own eyes. This means you must stop yourself from thinking that you’ve got this figured out, or that you can handle your situation. You can’t. Abiding is receiving, not figuring out.
What do I do if I’m not experiencing joy?
Jeremiah 15:16
Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts.
You may read this verse and think, “Man, I wish I could feel so passionately about the words of God! Why do I struggle so much to actually desire to be in His Word?” Prior to this verse, however, Jeremiah was actually in a similar boat. He tells the Lord, I’m speaking what You’re telling me. I’m receiving what you’re telling me. But nobody is listening to me. They’re coming after me. So this whole thing doesn’t make sense to me. I just want to quit.
This is where so many people find themselves when they start abiding. They decide it’s not working and they just want to quit. But God reminds us that it’s a process, not a destination. Don’t worry about the outcome yet, just be faithful to what He is showing you. Once Jeremiah let go of the outcome, he rediscovered the wonder of receiving God’s words, and they became a joy to Him.
If you back up and see what those words were, they were anything but joyful. So the joy was in the communication with God, the intimacy with Him, and the walking with Him and hearing His voice and knowing that God was leading him on a path. Jeremiah was trusting God, knowing that He is faithful.
Abiding in the Word ought to be a joy. If you’re in the Word, but you’re not having joy, then something is not right. And generally it’s that you’ve gone back to intellect, or you’ve turned back to making a checklist of it. In either case, there ceases to be any joy in it. It actually makes you heavy hearted because the intellectual perspective and the checklist both remind you of all the things you can’t do. But God says, no, let it be a joy. Even when we are failing, or not understanding, there is joy in receiving words from God. Even when we are being convicted or hearing something we do not understand, the relationship with God is joyful. Why? Because we are eating the words.
A great picture for this is that of a ruminant sheep, or cow. They eat grass, they chew on it, chew some more, swallow some of it, absorb it, and then they pull it back up to chew on it more. Eventually, the grass becomes meat. This is what it looks like to chew on the Word of God. It’s not about what you get right away. It’s about processing on what God has given you. Is it true for you right away? Is there an immediate answer for you? If not, keep chewing on it. If you stick with it, you will discover the joy in it!
Community is key.
Matthew 18:18-20
18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed[a] in heaven. 19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
Abiding is firstly a personal thing. This looks like you hearing and receiving God’s Word for you and pursuing His truth. But abiding is also meant to be done in community. You and your spouse don’t abide in the same scriptures, or on the same subject, right? And that’s good. We are meant to share with one another and ask one another questions. So, as you start out in this abiding process, share what you are learning with somebody else. Are you having joy? Are you hearing from God? Discussing these questions and more with one another keeps you accountable and encourages you. As you abide, you can dialogue with your other person. This is not to be out of condemnation, but in order to find truth together. How good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! (Psalm 133:1) The word for pleasant here is ‘naiym’, which literally translates as ‘harmony’. God is revealing something different to your spouse and/or friend, and as they share it it brings forth a bigger picture of what God is saying. We may get part of what God is saying, but we don’t always get the fullness, because He’s designed us to do that in community. God desires for us to live in unity with both Him and our inner circle. God is revealing something else to the other person and as they share it, it brings in the harmony that then fills out the fuller picture of what God is saying.
As you proceed in your abiding journey, keep these things in mind. Don’t give up; instead, rely upon God’s faithfulness, seek His truth and allow Him to teach you, and pursue godly community in which you can share and find encouragement. In doing these things, you will find the great joy and abundance that comes with living a life with Christ. Keep chasing after Him and He will reveal to you all that you need to know, in any situation.
And, if you have more questions, don’t hesitate to contact us any time, at https://abideministries.com/contact-us/. We’d love to hear from you and process any questions you may have!