Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit for apart from me, you can do nothing. John 15, five. Hey, welcome out to episode 97 for the short devotional called Abide in Christ. Now this devotional is available on our website for a ebook download. You can check it out and um, purchase it. That'd be awesome. Also, go to our website, grace ops.com and sign up for our, our email. Subscribe on the emails. That'd be awesome for us to stay in touch with you. You can learn about what's, you know, upcoming stuff. Just stay in tune with how God's, uh, developing grace ops all across this nation. It's really exciting times. We're, we're happy to serve the men of this country and the families of this country. So let's get right into the devotional here.
Speaker 0 00:00:51 Abide in Christ. Jesus came to show us the Father. This means that in him we see the very nature of God. He is the image of the invisible God. As described in Colossians. Christ is not only showing us the heart and nature of our father in heaven, but he is also showing us how to live upright and holy lives. Because of the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, we can be forgiven and restored. What the first Adam corrupted the second Adam Christ redeemed as the one, as the one who was slain. His blood has power to conquer sin and death because he lived a holy life and knew no sin. I mean, this devotional, kind of what we're talking about here, really separates Christianity from all of the religions. I mean, in my opinion and, uh, what really wise men teach is there's only two ways of the world. There's the way of God and the way of the fool. That's it. So here we are back to the devotional. Christ restores us to full relationship with God. The Holy Spirit then animates our lives and trains us to walk in holiness. It is not some mystical theory, impossible thing to do. Holiness is setting your heart apart from the world and setting it on Christ. Grace helps us live holy lives.
Speaker 0 00:02:14 It is key for those who follow after Messiah as his disciples to focus on abiding in him and his community. He told us that if we do not abide in him, we can do nothing for him. His presence is the key to our strength and ability to produce a kingdom advancing life. So if we lack his presence, we are open to all kinds of sin and stumbling. If we maintain his presence, however, we can live as Christ and conquer in this life. I love the picture. I love this picture of the vine and branches. The branch can withstand the storm because it is connected to the source of life. How are you honestly doing right now at Abiding
Speaker 1 00:02:59 In Christ? How are you doing? Take some inventory. It has been my experience that all hell will come against this assignment and even more lifestyle, this lifestyle to abide. So we must be sober minded as we walk all of this out together. His community is established to help us stay focused and motivated to abide. My brothers in Christ seem to have the strength right at the point when I need it most. And I too have also been able to strengthen them in times of their weaknesses. We are not alone in this journey, and I hope you are leveraging the power of community in the gray ops culture where they call, we call these build community groups and we'd love to get you connected to one of them. Um, in our membership through the app that we built on the commission platform just for Gray Ops. It's a really powerful thing that we're building and releasing. So the action part of this devotion is simple. What is your plan to increase abiding in Christ? If we fail to plan, then we plan to fail. So be intentional, be specific, be honest with yourself. Well, that's it for today and until next time, live upright.
