Come on in

Isaiah 12:2-4 says, ““Behold—God is my salvation! I am confident, unafraid, and I will trust in You.” Yes! The Lord Yahweh is my might and my melody; he has become my salvation!”

Last week we talked about abiding in Jesus. What does it mean? What is abiding? We know in the Greek language it is the word, “meno”. It means to remain, abide, to continue to be present, to be held, to be kept continually, to remain as one, not to become another or different. But what does that look like practically?

I think sometimes we overcomplicate our relationship with God. God loves us so much all He wants is a relationship with us. A genuine, love filled relationship. Isaiah’s words from our verse today are not words one would say about a stranger. Those are words one would say about someone they know, love and trust.

King David said in Psalms 33:20-22, “The Lord alone is our radiant hope and we trust in him with all our hearts. His wraparound presence will strengthen us. As we trust, we rejoice with an uncontained joy flowing from Yahweh! Let Your love and steadfast kindness overshadow us continually, for we trust and we wait upon You!”

When we are in a relationship with someone we care about, what do we do? We talk to them every chance we get. When something happens we want them to be the first to know, good or bad. If I am having a great day or a particularly bad day, I am texting my best friend letting her know all about it even though I know I will see her later on in the day. Why, because I want her to know as it is happening.

God wants the same with us. When something exciting happens, He wants us to tell Him all about it. My friends sometimes forget they told me something but because it is so exciting for them, I let them tell me again just so I can watch the joy on their faces and hear the excitement in their voice. God is the same with us! Yes, He knows everything, but He wants to hear it from you!

Talking to God does not need to methodical of full of thou’s and thus’s. Talk to God as you would talk to your friend. The amazing thing about talking to God is that you don’t always need to talk. You can sing a song. You can pray in tongues. You can just sit in His Presence and read the Bible. You can put on a sermon and wait to hear Him speak to you. You can pray in the car, worship in the shower, whenever you feel like it, you can talk to Jesus anytime, anywhere!

The good news is, the more time we spend in God’s word and in His Presence, the more we learn to hear His voice. The more we hear His voice, the more it builds our trust in Him as we begin to see things that He said would happen, happen in our lives. As our trust in Him grows, we begin to let Him into the deep parts of our hearts, and we trust Him to do a work in us.

Abiding in simple terms is consenting to God doing what He needs to do in our lives. It is surrendering our lives to the Lordship of Jesus. It is saying to God, “You be the King and Lord of my life.” Sometimes we are so scared of surrender because we are not sure what God will ask us to lay on the alter. But I find that that fear comes from a place where we do not know God and it reveals places where we have not yet received the love of God, see 1 John 4:18.

Psalms 91:1-2 says, “When you abide under the shadow of Shaddai, you are hidden in the strength of God Most High. He’s the hope that holds me and the stronghold to shelter me, the only God for me, and my great confidence.” We can trust God with our innermost thoughts. We can trust Him with our hurts and pain. We can trust Him with our joy and we can trust Him with our sorrow. We don’t need to be strong in His Presence, He is our strength.

Abiding is simply choosing to allow God to be involved in your life. Revelations 3:20 says, “Behold, I’m standing at the door, knocking. If your heart is open to hear my voice and you open the door within, I will come in to you and feast with you, and you will feast with me.” Abiding is opening that door and saying, “Come on in, Jesus.”

God is good. Whatever He does or asks of us is because He is good and He loves us deeply. We can trust Him with our hearts. We can abide in Him.

Love and blessings,

Melissa Tsingano