The Spiritual "Secret" to Happiness

Abide in Me

If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful; He cannot deny Himself.  2 Tim. 2:13

John 15:1-17

Have you, like me, often looked at others and wondered how it is that they seem to never have a bad day?  Is it really possible to have joy and perfect peace every moment of every day or is that just an illusion ~ something to strive for, but in all probability never attain?  This not only can  describe us, it should describe us if we are saved today.  Jesus is constant.  We can and should be, too.  We get so used to thinking that if it sounds too good to be true it probably is, but we can count on the Word of God being at least as good as it sounds … and even better!  With God there is no such thing as “too good to be true.”

Once we are saved our life in every respect becomes “No longer I, but Christ that liveth in me.” (Galatians 2:20-3:9)   Did you catch that?   Christ lives in you.  Right now.  It isn’t about imitating Him. It isn't working up faith or striving for faith or even praying for faith to believe it. It’s simply about being in Him and letting Him be in you.  "If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful; He cannot deny Himself."  His truths are not in any way negated by our unbelief.  

When I got married I didn’t have to pretend or will it with all my might or go through the motions of being married.  I simply was married, and I daily lived in the delight of the fact.  The Christian life is much the same.  You don’t have to “act” like a Christian.  Just be one.  Simply rest in Jesus and let Him do the work through you.  It’s doing the next thing in light of eternity knowing  Jesus is with you, in you; it’s living in light of His presence.  The most mundane tasks become sacred duty, a sacrifice of love for God, and a joy  ~ yes, right down to scrubbing behind toilets.. 

It seems too good to be true though, doesn’t it?  The reality of our everyday life looks nothing like this.  It’s a struggle to find joy in wiping off the same counter for the thousandth time, and picking up stinky socks, and sweeping up endless piles of sand tracked in by so many busy feet.  We try so hard to make our homes peaceful little pieces of heaven on earth, only to fall into bed exhausted at the end of another chaotic day that can feasibly be chalked up to yet another colossal failure.
     

We’re saved by faith, and we live by faith (Galatians 3:11b) for “without faith it is impossible to please God.”  The majority of Christians willingly trust God by faith with the eternal state of their soul, but fail to trust Him with its present state.  They fail to realize that the same faith required for sanctification is demonstrated at salvation.  Our sanctification, or our "being made holy," is no more a result of our efforts than is our salvation, and yet we strive and beat at the air, and fall time and time and time again, all the while wondering why we are living in defeat when we are promised victory, as if it’s God’s fault.  We think “I just don’t have it in me to be happy all the time.”  Oh, but we do!  If Jesus is indeed in us, we DO!  We sing it all the time, but we do not believe it.  "I'm inright, outright, upright, downright happy all the time."  

The reason we accept defeat is because we refuse to choose to live in the promised victory.  It really is that simple.  We may not always feel saved, but that doesn't change the fact that we are.  We may not always feel holy, but that doesn't change the fact that we can and should be.   We are not to be governed by our feelings, we are to govern our feelings, keeping them under the Holy Spirit's control.  Our feelings are a gift, and they are meant for our good, but when we use them for evil, and allow them to dictate our lives, especially with regard to our level of faith, victory, and growth we will live lives of defeat, discouragement, and discord.     

“Be ye holy for I am holy.”  It’s not an act.  It isn’t pretend.  It’s simply being.  Abiding.

When feelings of fear creep in on me, or I feel the panic rise in seemingly dire situations, I have to take a deep breath, step back, and ask myself, “From the last moment to this, what changed?”  The answer always falls on my own shoulders; my trust faltered, and it was my choice.  I chose the fear.  “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14: 27b) is a command, not merely a suggestion.  "Let not" implies an act of the will.  As for my Jesus, He is the same as He ever was. 

Instead of bondage, liberty is mine; instead of failure and defeat, quiet victories within; instead of fear and weakness, a restful sense of sufficiency in the Source of All-Sufficiency.  The lack of these graces on my part never indicates a lack of sufficiency or failure on His.  And again, His truths are never negated in the least by my lack of belief.  All these things are God’s will for me.  The question is, do I believe it?   My actions will always follow my beliefs.

So what’s the secret?  The secret is that there is no secret.  It’s simply a choice of whether or not we “believe that He is and is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him,” and choosing to abide in that belief.  Abiding and faith go hand in hand for you cannot abide if you do not first believe that God can and will do what He says. If you really believe it, your life will show it. 

What, then, does it mean to “abide?” (15:4)

Literally it means to dwell, to remain, to sit, not to depart, to be held, to continue to be present, to wait, to keep.  All of these things require an act of the will on our part.  We can choose not to dwell, to depart, to stand alone, to leave Him, to sin.  But if we choose to abide in Him, He abideth faithful.  He cannot deny Himself; He will not deny us.  If we are not willfully living in known sin, we do not have to wonder if we are abiding in Christ.  We will KNOW when we are not.  We will have no peace, no rest, no joy until we make it right with Him.  We have chosen to stop abiding.

Practically speaking it simply means peace.  It means treating the cares of the day like hot potatoes.  As soon as the world, and the devil, and other people and our flesh through burdens our way, we toss them on to Jesus in prayer and leave them there, going about our day, rejoicing as if we already have the petitions we have asked of Him.  That is faith in action.  It is praying without ceasing.

Being upset, angry, worried, or impatient is not only not helpful, it's sinful.  Let go, and let God have the situation.  Take that step back and take the time and energy you would normally put into these negative emotions and pray.  It's a discipline, but it works.  

Jesus is the vine.  He’s not merely the root, but ALL – root, stem, leaves, branches, twigs, flowers, fruit.  And not only that He is soil, sunshine, air and showers, and ten thousand times more than we have ever dreamed, wished for or needed!  But true praying isn’t merely wishing, it’s willing.  Jesus often asked before performing a miracle, “What wilt thou that I should do?”  A drunk may wish to be delivered from his vice, but he never will be until he wills it.  To the Syrophenician woman He said, “Great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”  Faith saved her.  As Andrew Murray so succinctly says, “Faith is nothing but the purpose of the will resting on God’s Word, and saying:  I must have it.  To believe truly is to will firmly.”  We do not have to will with all our might for our children to be ours.  Of course not.  Jesus has freely given them to us.  But we could will to treat them as a burden instead of a gift.   God’s Word clearly tells us that they are a “reward” whether we choose to consider them to be so or not. 

    

 The same goes for the fruit of the Spirit.  Jesus is the vine, we are the branches.  The fruit is ours.  But we can will to live as if they are not.  We can choose to be the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit ~ unloving, angry, bitter, impatient, mean, unfair, and fearful.  But who in their right mind would?   Be loving.  Be joyful.  Be peaceful.  Be longsuffering.  Be gentle.  Be meek.  Be patient. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Galatians 5:1 

The victory is ours.  Live like it.

We are promised Christ's perfect peace.  Live like it.

His grace IS sufficient.  Let's live like it!

I no longer pray for victory or anything that is expressly promised in God's Word.  I pray that we would live in the victory, and joy, and peace, and grace that is already ours.  It has transformed, not only my prayer life, but life itself.  

Conclusion: 

Faith is taking God at His Word. 

Hudson Taylor said it best:  “It is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Savior, to be a member of Christ!  Think what it involves.  Can Christ be rich and I poor?  Can your right hand be rich and your left poor?  Or your head be well fed while your body starves?  Again, think of its bearing on prayer.  Could a bank clerk say to a customer, ‘It was only your hand, not you that wrote that check’; or ‘I cannot pay this sum to your hand, but only to yourself?'  No more can your prayers or mine be discredited if offered in the name of Jesus (i.e., not for the sake of  Jesus merely, but on the ground that we are His, His members) so long as we keep within the limits of Christ’s credit—a tolerably wide limit!  If we ask for anything unscriptural, or not in accordance with the will of God, Christ Himself could not do that.  But ‘if we ask any thing according to His will…we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.’

The sweetest part….is the rest which full identification with Christ brings.  I am no longer anxious about anything, as I realize this; for He, I know is able to carry out His will, and His will is mine.  It makes no matter where He places me, or how.  That is rather for Him to consider than for me; for in the easiest position He must give me His grace, and in the the most difficult His grace is sufficient.  It little matters to my servant whether I send him to buy a few cash worth of things, or the most expensive articles.  In either case he looks to me for the money and brings me his purchases.  So, if God should place me in serious perplexity, must He not give much guidance; in positions of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength?  No fear that His resources will prove unequal to the emergency! And His resources are mine, for He is mine, and is with me and dwells in me.”

Assignment:  Read John chapters 14 and 15 and highlight or underline all the “too good to be true words” such as “let not”, “believe”, “I go”, “I will”, “I am”, “believe me”, “verily, verily”, “abide”, “dwelleth”, “in you”, “all”, “every” and “it shall be done.” 

Listen with your heart, sweet friends.  He wrote that for you. 

 “When faith goes to market it always takes a basket.”  ~Unknown