Discover the Abiding Life

I was going to meet with a small group, and I knew I would be expected to say something. I thought, “I have nothing to give.”

Jesus whispered, “You have everything in Me.” My confidence went from myself to Him. Now I could rest in Him and say what I knew He was giving me.

Perhaps no author has written more on the abiding life than A. B. Simpson. The reason may be because of what occurred the moment after he yielded himself to Christ.

In one supreme surrender, Mr. Simpson handed over his self-life to the indwelling Christ and trusted Christ with his future. He rose from that prayer with a quiet sense of rest. He had no emotion but a deep sense of a great transaction done and a question settled.

The first test came immediately. It was a deep, subtle suggestion of Satan telling him that he had just imagined that he was now changed. “You are just the same as you were ten minutes ago. You have simply humbugged yourself and imagined that something has come to you, but you feel nothing, you have nothing.”

His first impulse was to begin to fight the tempter with his own reasonings as he had done in the past.

Then came this quiet thought: “This is not your battle, but Christ’s. Hand it over to your great Deliverer.”

It was such a strange and easy idea, Mr. Simpson wondered if it would work. He prayed a silent prayer referring the question to Christ. Immediately the cloud disappeared! He knew he had the secret of future victory.

Looking to Christ moment by moment is the way to live the Christ-life. We are to respond to Him, yield to His direction, and continually wait on Him with faith.

Thank You, Jesus, that surrender brings freedom to trust.

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7).