The Healthy Branch

The Healthy Branch
By Dudley Hall www.sclm.org

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. John 15:7-8 (ESV)

It seems too simple. Surely there is more to it than abiding and asking. We tend to make the ways of God more complicated than he makes them. Could it be as simple as Jesus has indicated?

God the Father has gone to a lot of trouble to establish such a possibility as Jesus suggests. Alienated from God, mankind had no way to ever be so intimate with the Father. We were "in Adam" and Adam was cast out of the Garden and lived from a perspective of hiding behind a bush. Jesus, the last Adam, has made it possible for us to be as united with the Father as he was while on the earth. There is nothing we could do to make us closer to God. We are in him! So what could we do in addition to abiding?

God did the placement. We abide by living accordingly. As we choose to believe what he has done, we enjoy the benefits of the relationship. We don't always feel or sense that we are so united with the Father, but our sensory awareness is not the last word. When we choose to live by what he says, we experience what he says.

Do you get the impression that God the Father looks forward to answering our prayers? It seems that we often live with a built-in doubt that he is interested. It is by answering our prayers that we are distinguished as disciples of Jesus. Actually he will lead us into circumstances of deficit in order to supply our needs.

If you have a legitimate need today, it is God's invitation to pray. When you pray, remember that you are an extension of his will on the earth. You represent him and he is not hesitant to establish you and supply all you need for your assignment.

Give it a try. Abide and ask. There is no better way to live as his son on earth.