REMAIN in Christ!
Once again, I really appreciated today’s Coffee Break devotion from Lorraine Ezell, because it’s such an important message for everyone standing for marriage restoration since we have to stop striving in our own understanding and strength if we’re ever going to learn to cast our cares and burdens on the Lord as we rely on the power and promise of His Word…AND REMAIN IN HIM!
The importance and significance of Lorraine’s message is made very clear in John 15:5-11, where Jesus said:
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
WOW! What a powerful and encouraging passage of scripture for all of us as we stand against the world and the gates of Hell for the restoration of our marriages and families! There’s SO MUCH in these few verses, and we need to REALLY study and meditate on them to fully understand their significance. We often try to make things so complicated! Well maybe it isn’t that we try to make it that way; maybe we just can’t believe how truly simple it really is. But look at what Jesus said in verse 7; If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. That’s SO simple; yet it seems to be so hard for many of us to DO, even though that’s exactly how the Bible tells us to be victorious in matters of spiritual warfare. The simple truth is that the devil is defeated and has to flee when we SPEAK the Word of God back to him and we can’t DO that without having His Word written on the tablets of our hearts, which means memorized. And the importance of that is revealed in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, which says For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And without KNOWING the Word, how will we even recognize the arguments and pretensions that set themselves up against the knowledge of God; much less take them captive and make them obedient to Christ, which means making our thoughts and words line up with the Word?
So there’s no way to underestimate the importance of knowing, speaking and living according to the Word of God! And the best example of that was when Jesus was tempted by the devil and He responded by saying “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ (Matthew 4:4) The devil is NEVER going to stop coming against us to steal, kill and destroy (John10:10), but when we follow the example Jesus provides in Matthew 4:1-11, the devil WILL BE DEFEATED and we will be victorious and our marriages and families WILL BE RESTORED!
Then the devil will be defeated by the word of our restored marriage testimonies, just as we see in Revelation 12:10-11, which says Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
It’s very important for us to understand that the Lord gives us what we ask for when we rely on the power and promise of God’s Word, using it to overcome and defeat the works and intentions of the devil, so that the fruit it bears in our lives will bring Him glory. That’s what Jesus explained in John 15:8, where He said This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. “ And that brings glory to Jesus as well. So when we have a difficult time believing that God is going to do EXACTLY what His Word says (that HE will make sure that it does NOT return void), perhaps it helps to understand that even if we don’t believe that He will do it for us, we can believe that He WILL do it for the praise, honor and glory of His beloved Son, just as Ephesians 1 tells us.
According to Jesus, the reason to remain in Him; the reason He gave us the commands in John 15, is that our joy might be made complete! And that’s certainly one thing everyone standing for marriage restoration is waiting for, so let’s remember the very important counsel and instructions Jesus gave us about remaining in Him in John 15:9-11, which says “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. And when the devil comes to deceive us into believing that it’s impossible to do ANYTHING the Lord tells us to do, we have to remember what Jesus said in John 15:5…apart from Him, we can do NOTHING! And the GOOD NEWS is that Philippians 4:13 (NKJV) says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And we CAN DO that by claiming and relying on the encouragement found in 2 Corinthians 12:9, which says But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
And finally, the key to “remaining” in Christ is remaining in His Word, because the Word is Christ and Christ is the Word (John 1:1-5 and John 1:14). And since faith comes by hearing the Word (Romans 10:17) and it’s the Word that lights our way (Psalm 119:105); and since it is the word of God that can speak life to the dead bones of our marriages (Ezekiel 37:3-5), it’s no wonder that there’s almost always a very direct correlation between the amount of time people spend studying the Word of God and the fruit it bears in their lives; including the fruit of marriage restoration! So REMAIN in Christ by remaining in the Word of God, and you WILL BE blessed and encouraged!
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28
Are you weary? Are you in need of a refreshing? Do you feel you can’t go on? Are you burdened down with the cares of life? Does it seem more than you can bear? Are you carrying things that are too heavy for you– guilt, the burdens of others, pain, grief, condemnation? Are you ready to stop being tired and weary, overwhelmed and burdened down? Well, then do something about it… “Come to me”. Go to Jesus.
You can’t just hope it will go away. You can’t just sit back and wait for it to get better. You can’t just wish it would happen. You have to do something— go to Him and cast it upon Him. You have to make a step toward the Lord and surrender the burdens you are trying to bear. You weren’t designed to carry them. And don’t believe the enemy that tells you that this is your “cross to bear”— “His yoke is easy and His burden is light”.
He offers you an invitation this morning… “Come to Me”. Will you accept it or will you continue to carry the load? Go to Him, get into His presence, place your “heaviness” upon Him, and wait there until the burdens have lifted, His rest engulfs you, and a time of refreshing comes.
There are two things that we usually do when we finally accept His invitation to come and cast them upon Him. We either do cast them upon Him but take them back, or we don’t wait long enough for His presence to come so we can give them to Him. This morning there is one more option— be still, wait for Him to take them, wait for His peace to come, then leave the burdens with Him and take the “rest” with you.
Have a great day. Don’t be burdened down another day. Cast it upon the Lord and let Him give you His rest.
Coffee Break is a morning devotional written by Lorraine Ezell and it’s sent by email free of charge for the asking from About the Master’s Business Ministry, Inc.
So please feel free to call Lorraine at (601) 833-5278 or E-mail her at mastersbusiness@bellsouth.net.
And you can visit her on the web at MastersBusiness.org.