If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. John 15:7.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says;
Jesus gave you a tremendous promise, which means, of course, that I gave it to you because though I spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days I have spoken to you in My Son, whom I appointed heir of all things, through whom also I made the world. And He is the radiance of My glory and the exact representation of My nature and upholds all things by the Word of His power. Hebrews 1:1-3. And here is the promise: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” John 15:7. Have you ever read this promise? Do you believe it? And the most important question, has it come to pass in your life? If it has not, and if in your heart you have been disappointed when things did not manifest that you had wanted and asked for, then it is time to take another look.
First, you see that this promise is only for those who abide in Jesus and His Words abide in them. So, I would think you would be desirous to make sure you are abiding in Him and His Words are abiding in you, which of course also means that in Him you are abiding in Me and My Words, since He only spoke My Words, are abiding in you. I am the one that teaches you to profit and the way you should go, so today, for those of you who want to go deeper and see this promise prove true in your life, for My Words are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace on the earth, refined seven times, Psalm 12:6, I will begin a series of life lessons on how to abide in Me and My Words abide in you so you can ask what you wish and it will be done for you.
It is always important to consider a promise in My Word in context and not just the line itself. Looking at the verses immediately before and after this one gives insight. This promise appears in the teaching of Jesus wherein He compares the believer’s life to a branch abiding in a vine, with Him as the vine, you as the branches, and Me as the vine keeper. This teaching reveals how you function as one in, with, and through Jesus as I watch over the vine. I cleanse, prune, support, and care for the growth of the branches. Without being attached to the vine, the branch cannot bear fruit, in fact, it cannot live apart from the vine but withers up and dies. The vine gives it life, growth, and all necessary to bear good fruit, but the branch is the part that actually bears the fruit by staying attached and receiving what the vine gives it as well as what the sun shines upon it. “O LORD of Hosts, let your Face shine on us and we shall be saved!”
The verses after this promise give more insight into how you abide in the vine. The first sentence immediately following the amazing promise is as follows: “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” John 15:8. So you see that the abiding life is the life of a disciple and it should have fruit. And Jesus very clearly defines a disciple for you, “If you continue (abide, remain) in My Word, you are truly My disciple, and then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32. A disciple is one who abides in the Word, that is, listens to, studies, meditates upon, speaks and does the Word. It is total oneness with the Word. A disciple is in agreement with his teacher and becomes just like his teacher. Matthew 10:25 (“It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher.”) If you keep My Word you are My disciple, if you keep the devil’s word, you are his disciple. “If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!” Matthew 10:25. Watch the thoughts you are allowing yourself to think upon and the words you are saying and decide whose disciple you are. If you are dwelling on thoughts of envy, anger, and bitterness you are not abiding in Me nor in My Word. If you are allowing depression, grieving, fear, anxiety, and other thoughts of similar vein to control your mind, you are not abiding in Me nor are My Words abiding in you. You have to develop a zero tolerance policy for words contrary to Mine if you want this promise. That is what My apostle Paul did, he took every thought captive in obedience to Christ and he gave you a list of things he permitted himself to think on and he concluded: “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:8-9.
And let us continue with the lines following the Promise: “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” John 15:9-11. This shows that abiding in Jesus and His Word makes you fruitful in good works and surrounds you with love, but this passage also reveals that to abide in Him and His Words you also keep His commandments, in other words, you are a doer of the Word and not a hearer only. So today’s first life lesson is on doing a very important commandment of Jesus. And I am starting here because this is about having your prayers answered every time and all the time, i.e. “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” John 15:7.
Jesus told you this, and it is My Word to you as well, “Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be yours. Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions.” Mark 11:24-26.
Principle No. 1 to abide in Me and Me in you: “Forgive, forget, and proceed.” If you are harboring any kind of hatred, resentment, bitterness, jealousy, and/or anger against anyone, including yourself and Me, it comes in this category. So how do you get this out?
Jesus also told you that you must forgive your brother from your heart. So forgiveness is a matter of the heart, as is faith, so you see it begins in the spirit, the inner man of the heart. I also tell you to forgive others in the same way I have forgiven you. And how do I forgive you? By the Blood of My Son. He made peace through the Blood of the Cross and reconciled you to Me. I made Him who knew no sin to be sin for you so that in Him you become the righteousness of God. You stand before Me blameless, holy, and without reproach because of what He did for you. He took the punishment by taking your sins and faults as if they were His own so that I would see them on you no more. He made it as if you had never done the wrong. He made it no longer “your” fault but His. He paid Me the ransom you could not pay. And He paid the ransom for EVERYONE. 1 Timothy 2:6. Whether you receive Him or not is up to you, but if you do not receive Him you reject His saving work and you die in your own sins and are judged accordingly. And I have a zero tolerance for sin. The wages of sin is death, but My free gift to you in Jesus is His righteousness and justification as if you had never sinned because He bore your sins and took your punishment. So I have forgiven everyone, but whether they allow Me to apply that forgiveness to them is up to them. The standard with which you measure is measured back to you and as you judge, so are you judged. If you do not forgive another, you are saying that what Christ did is not enough to satisfy you for their offense. And if His blood is not enough for you, then I have to apply the same standard of measure to you, and therefore you are not forgiven either. Do you see? Do unto others as you would have the do unto you (the “golden rule”) has far reaching effects and you could be destroying your own destiny by trying to ruin another’s. And this also applies to yourself. If you cannot forgive yourself, even to the point of suicide, then you are telling Me that His Blood is not enough to take away your sins as if for you they had never been.
Forgiveness is not just something nice you do for others. It is your life. Be careful about this lest you fall short and ruin your life.
A very good example for you to consider of forgiveness is that of Jacob’s son, Joseph. His brothers hated him and plotted to kill him but instead sold him to slave traders. If anything would be hard to forgive, it would be this. Especially as he, the favored son, experienced the horrors of slavery. But Joseph kept his eyes on Me. He abided in Me and that was what preserved him and made him prosperous even as a slave. He refused to have a down day. You see this time and time again in what he said in his slavery and imprisonment. He never shared with anyone what his brothers had done to him or what Potiphar’s wife had done to him. When asked by the prisoners why he was in jail he merely said he had been taken by force out of his native land and not done anything that he should be in prison for. Pharoah knew nothing about Joseph’s brothers when they came for food in the famine, and Pharoah so loved Joseph and favored him that he was happy to look after his brothers and father and their families as well. He would not have done that if he had known the evil they had done to Joseph. And finally, Joseph himself told his brothers that they need not worry about him trying to get back at them for what they had done, he merely said they had meant it for harm but that I had worked it for his good and the good of his brothers and the good of everyone in Egypt and the Middle East. I sent Joseph to care for that whole region in a time of famine and I told him just how to do it. He remained in Me and in My Words and he asked what he wished and it was done for him. I even gave him more than he asked for. But he never asked for anything but good. He had become like Me. I was with him. He forgave, forgot, and proceeded forward with the great plans I had for his life. You may question if he forgot, and I would say, “Yes, he did.” Because never talking about it, never reliving it in gossip, never dwelling on it in your own inner thoughts even if you don’t share it, and never bringing it up to the one or ones who did it is not only forgiving but what I call forgetting.
And, of course, your best example of forgive, forget and proceed is Jesus. Even to His death on the cross, He was pouring out His life to save those who had sinned against Me from the beginning to the end of time and those around Him who rejected, betrayed, beat, and killed Him. Why? His love and compassion for you outweighed any sin you could commit. And that is how it is with Me. My mercy and compassion on beyond all you can ask or think. I remember that you are dust. I know how you are formed. And I know how wonderful you can be if you hear the right words, think the right thoughts, and say the right words. Remember that. Do not scold others, mold them into My Word by speaking correction with love and compassion. They don’t know what they do.
But you who know My Word should know what you are doing for I have told you. You have a whole book on it, which Joseph did not have. He had what he knew from Jacob and Isaac and handed down from Abraham as well as dreams I gave him. But I tell you I was with him, and like Abraham, he listened to My voice and obeyed. And he forgave from his heart.
I love you. Forgive, forget and proceed for My mercy and grace is all you need. Abide.