Believers become disciples by abiding in the Vine

Welcome to episode 342. In this episode, I'm going to celebrate my birthday and this one thing that I do and will encourage you to do for 2023. But before we get started, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I'm continuing to talk about this one thing that I do. God put me in that at the beginning of the year, and it's where Paul said, forgetting those things which are behind me. And I think that that is a wonderful word for the beginning of any year. In 2023, January, first part of January, we can turn over a new leaf. We can turn to a new chapter or a new page in our life. Before we can do that, we got to forget about all the mistakes we made. We got to forget about even all the victories, and we got to keep moving. We got to keep going forward. And that's what I'm here to do. I'm not here to tell you that I've got this all figured out and I just follow me as I follow Christ, but I'm learning to take steps of faith. And all through 2022, I took physical steps of faith. And when I say physical, I mean in my physical well-being. I did exercises, I did some squats, I did push-ups. But this year I'm going to work on my finances. I want to talk about the one thing you and I both can do, and I've talked about this repeatedly but not in this context. This one thing that we can do is abide in the word. And there is a push in this world to go fast and to use technology. That is so appealing, and it's a cool and neat attraction. We have to remember that the kingdom of God is seedtime and harvest. God's way of doing things is planting something in the ground and allowing the earth to bring forth that fruit and that grain. And we're not gonna change the word of God, even though this world feels like it may be spinning out of control or going so much faster. God is not surprised by any of this. In fact, the Bible talks about all of this knowledge gonna increase. And if you don't think the world is going really fast, do the artificial intelligence, ChatGPT or whatever it is. That's an incredible thing. And I've heard commentators say that that's gonna change really the world. I don't know about all that, but I do know if we start hooking into the world system, we're gonna get what the world has to offer. I don't think it can be any simpler than that. We need to pick a side. We've talked about this before. Jesus in John 10:10 said, the thief comes only to steal, to kill, and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly. There's two different sides. There's the biblical side, and then there's the world side. There's Satan, who's the prince of power of this air, and there is Jesus, who is King and Lord of everything. But the problem is Jesus is now in heaven. The Holy Spirit is here, but Satan is also here, and Satan works in the physical realm. We've talked about this multiple times. Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God are working in the spiritual realm, and that's why we need to learn to take steps by faith. A popular scripture we always go to is, enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way, and there are many that go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life, and there are few who find it. So I may have chopped that up. I'll put that up on the screen. And we've talked about this narrow and broad, easy and difficult. And what's easier, to type something in a computer and get an answer, or to dig into God's word and wait for the answer? Now I wanna talk about the one thing that I think you and I need to do. We've talked about moving from being a follower of Christ, just following along, to then being a believer. So you go from reading the word to believing the word. Now the next step, and this one thing that I want to encourage you to do, is to abide in his word. Let's read John 8:30-32. As he spoke these words, many believed in him. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed him, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Now the first step obviously is believing Jesus, and you believe in him And then the goal is to become a disciple. And the only way, as I read this, the only way to become a disciple of Jesus is to abide in his word. We are to live in his word. That don't mean you just got to be in there constantly and reading all the time. But if you read in the morning and you just think about it and just meditate on, let that word dig around and see how you can move your life in that direction. And take a step in that direction. And we're going to talk about stepping and walking in faith. I know you're probably bored with it or tired of it, but this is an important topic. We have got to learn how to walk by faith and not by sight. If we're going to fight the battle that needs to be fought, we have to be in the spirit realm to win. Now, we can fight in the physical realm, we can get angry, we can scream and shout and holler like everybody else is doing, but if you want to win the battle You've got to win it spiritually. We've got to fight like Jesus fought. We're going to look at that in the next episode, or maybe an episode or two down the road. But we have got to learn how to fight. We've got to learn what our spiritual weapons are. But we have to— this one thing we can do, we can abide. We can abide in his word. We're going to take this idea and we're going to dig into the vine. I want you to listen to Jesus. There's 7 I AMs in John. I'm not going to count them all. I've got them all in my head. But one of the I AMs is I AM the vine and you are the branches. So if we are a disciple, if we're abiding in his word, I want you to hear this as we abide in the word. I AM the vine and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples. And I'm gonna stop there. The disciple is a huge deal. It is a big, big deal. You go to Matthew 28 where it says, make disciples of all nations. Jesus gave his disciples a Great Commission. And you and I, if we abide in his word, we are disciples. The vine is such a cool representation what humans in the spirit realm, by symbolism— if you read the Bible and you read trees, when the Bible talks about a tree planted by the rivers of water in Psalm 1, that's a human. That is when you are planted in the ground, in the earth, and you let your roots dig into this word. Because I got to picture everything. But if you are the tree and your roots are dug down into this water, into this living water that's the Word of God, your tree just grows. But it grows over time. Have you ever seen a tree that's planted one day and it's a massive tree the next? It takes a lot of time. We've talked about this. That is, I believe, is the difficult part of walking in faith, is that it takes time. Everybody wants it now. I am no different. Patience is not one of my best attributes, but I am working on it. I have been doing this podcast for a long time, but it's only been 2 years. So it's not like it's 20 or 13 years like Abraham when he had Ishmael and he waited 13 years to hear from God. That's a long time. 2 years, not so much. Most people just won't stay with it. Most people want to do something for a month and then they want to throw their hands up. They want to do something else for a month. And, and I'm guilty of that. I'm starting and stopping all the stinking time, and I'm going to stop doing that. This one thing that I'm going to do, I'm going to abide in the vine, and I'm going to bear fruit. And Father God, as I bear fruit, I've just got to know that I'm going to make mistakes. Father God's going to see some things that can be trimmed up, and he's going to give me a little trimming so I can bear more fruit. And I'm good with that. I'm not excited about getting pruned. I don't know anybody that gets excited, but if God says I need to cut that off, cut it off, God. That's where I want to get you. I want to get you abiding in the word of God and allow the word of God to abide in you. Jesus is the word. When we spend time in this word, we are spending time with Jesus. We are in the vine. Get into the word of God. This one thing I want to encourage you, this year should be the year that we get into the word, that we slow it down. We're going to see this world speed up. All this artificial intelligence, we'll probably talk about that in the next episode. But I just want to encourage you to get into the Word of God. This one thing you can do. And one last thing I almost forgot. Today, if you're listening to this on January 10th, 2023, today is my spiritual birthday. 30 years ago today, I was reborn on January 10th, 1993. And I just want to shout out to the Holy Spirit and to Jesus and to the Word. I just want to thank God that he allowed me to become part of his family. And 30 years, that's when Jesus started his ministry. So here I go, I've been 30 years in this, I'm about to start my ministry again. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and let's pray. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you that we can do this one thing together. God, this is one thing that everybody can do, and I want to encourage this listener that they get into your word and allow the word to get into them. And then it says you can ask for anything and you will give it to them because it will give you glory, because we are doing your word, we are living in your word, we are abiding. God, help us to be more like you. Help us to live in your word. Holy Spirit, lead us into all truth and help us where we are messing up or where we need correction. God, we thank you. We love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.