Abiding
Devotions:
“Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.” 1 John 3:6 KJV
In the Old Covenant the retardnant to sin was the Law of God. No one would perfectly keep the Law, no one even came close.
“Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,” Acts 17:30 NASB
The Law did not and does not the power to overcome sin. But Jesus perfectly kept the Law by the power of the Spirit and then as the perfect sacrifice He died in our place for all of our sin. When He was raised from the dead we were raised with in the newness of His life. Now His life abides in us in our new spirit, the real you. We now have a choice since we have received Him, to walk in the vanity and weakness of the flesh or walk in the spirit. We must learn to give no place to our flesh and to buffet our bodies and keep them under the dominion of our spirit. That is we are to be spirit controlled not flesh controlled or emotionally controlled. To be spirit controlled is to first know that His spirit of resurrection life dwells in us and secondly to keep our focus on Jesus not on our circumstances or feelings or conditions. To focus on Jesus is to focus on His provision for our every need. If we have sickness attack our bodies we keep in the forfront of our minds that Jesus bore our illness and carried our diseases and by His stripe we are healed. When we see in our mind Jesus dying for our sickness and being beaten for our healing in the face of pain, weakness, discomfort and a bad doctors report we will grow in faith until the passion of Jesus and the reason for that passion becomes real to us then our healing will manifest.
This is how to abide in Him. When tempted by sin we need to focus on 2 Corinthians 5:21 where Jesus who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. By this righteousness we have intimacy with the Father and His presence fulfills every need that we have. Sin is turning away from God to meet our needs instead of truning to God to meet the need.
Abiding in Jesus is looking to Him in every circumstance and livning in the presence of His fullness in us and love for us. As we abide in Him in the power of His Spirit we will not sin. When we slip and sin His mercy is there to forgive us so we can get up and walk on in His presence.