I AM: Complete Week Seven - Day Three

By Central Women

I recently heard someone say, “When is the last time you were in God’s presence, simply to be in His presence?” Often we can rush in and out of our conversations with God, but this question stuck with me because I couldn’t remember a time when I was simply still to just be with God. I am often there to ask Him for something, to pray for someone, but not to simply deepen my connection and heart to Him.

The idea of possibly being still long enough to be the one listening, rather than doing all the talking was a new concept for me.

Does this happen to you too? I have also read a couple of books recently that talk about the peace that comes from being still and quiet before the Father, and I have longed for this closeness.

When is the last time you felt close to Jesus, or even the last time you felt still?

To begin our time today, take a few moments in stillness to read the words of Jesus in John 15:1-5, encouraging us how we can become truly complete.

This is a beautiful picture of what it looks like for us to be completely connected to Jesus. He is teaching us here to remain in Him or to abide. Abide also means to dwell, to remain or stay. We are invited to dwell in God’s presence and to stay completely connected to Him.

What an incredible invitation! Why do we so often resist it?

Recall verse 4, “Abide in me and I in you.” Do you notice that God also wants to dwell in us? For us to fully abide in Christ, we need to both pursue His presence and also receive His dwelling in us. We need to let down the walls of our hearts that may be blocking His connection and complete love toward us. We need to let Him into all those little places inside of us that are feeling incomplete, unworthy, or inadequate and allow Him to fill those spaces. Jesus filling us in all the places we are longing to be satisfied is where we will feel and become the most complete. Jesus filling us up completes us.

Picture in your mind the metaphor used here of a vine, the branches and the vine dresser. The vine dresser (the Father) so carefully tends to the vine, caring for it so that it can thrive and bear the most healthy, delicious fruit. He prunes away dead branches to keep the vine in the healthiest state possible. Often branches are trimmed off to protect the vine from a disease that has attacked the dead branch, and to prevent it from spreading throughout the vine. The vinedresser removes these so the branches that are connected to the vine can continue to produce fruit, grow, and mature. Jesus describes Himself as the vine and we are the branches. We know that a branch cannot survive apart from the vine, and we too can do nothing apart from Jesus (v.5).

Can you picture a dead branch on the ground, hardened and detached from its source of life, rough to the touch, broken and completely disconnected? How often do we go about our daily routine and lose that natural connection to Him, a vital connection that sustains life and produces fruit? How can you know how connected you are to Jesus?

We simply need to look at the branch, our soul. If we are experiencing love, joy, peace, patience to name a few, the connection is likely strong. If instead what is internal for you is hatred, stress, unrest, and chaos we have likely become disconnected from the vine.

We learn from this passage the answer to having life is found in staying attached to Jesus, the Giver of life. This place of security, attached to Jesus continually, is where we will be rooted in our identity, complete in Him, not hardened from the world or detached from our Maker.

For our identity to be saturated in Jesus, we need to be sure we are joined to Him, dwelling in His presence, allowing Him to fill our every desire. We need to allow Him into our places of brokenness and insecurity. He is the only one who can make us whole, who can make us complete.

Paul’s prayer in Ephesians is my prayer for each of you today, that Christ may dwell in your hearts richly and that you will be filled with all the fullness of God.

 “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Ephesians 3:14-19, emphasis added

Reflect:

How would you describe your connection to the vine?

What are some things you could do in the next week to deepen your intimate connection to Jesus?

How do you feel about Jesus abiding in you? Are there places that are hard for you to let Him in?