Only those who abide in Christ will have staying power. As in the parable of the soils found in Matthew 13, I will not desert the Lord due to tribulation or persecution (13:21) nor due to the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches (13:22).
I will last.
1. I will abide in Christ.
To remain and continue in Jesus means to settle down here, and to rest in Him. Doing this will require me to bring my self to Him at the start of each new day and to lay myself on the altar.
2. I will let His words abide in me.
It occurred to me recently that New Testament believers did not read their Bibles every day. They couldn’t since few if any owned personal copies of scripture. God’s word was found on parchment and papyrus scrolls, and was owned only in synagogues or by a privileged few. Therefore, they listened intently when Scriptures were read and made every attempt to remember them. Then, as they walked and talked, as they rose up and as they lay down (Deuteronomy 6:7), they called up those texts and recited them and talked of them.
I will do that.
3. I will therefore, as a result, abide in the moment.
To abide “in the moment” means I will not give divided attention to what I’m doing at any given time. I will be fully present.
This is hard. Today—New Year’s Day, 2016—I put on Facebook what I was doing: “Washing clothes, studying the Bible, reading a western novel and a book on Churchill, preparing to have lunch at my son’s house, and out the corner of my eye keeping up with the football bowl games.” And that’s the problem.
It’s called multi-tasking and it’s the bane of our time.
