By: David McFadden

“Yes, I am the Vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in Me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.”

When we abide with God in prayer, our yielding to Him will bear the fruit we seek. This seems to be a paradox and backward to our finite earthly minds, but the power for the answer comes from laying down our concerns and burdens and choosing to abide in Him. (John 15:5-8) We may have come into the prayer chamber clutching a desperate need with a “white-knuckle” grip, but God is in the resurrection business. When you lay down your burden and let go of it, God will raise it and give it His Life. Through God’s resurrection power, what was once dead is transformed and made new. When God transforms our burden, it will no longer weigh heavy on the heart.

The earthly tentacles that once bound us to our burden are loosed.

The essence of prayer is communing with God; therefore, a by-product of the time spent in close fellowship with Him in prayer is receiving His Life.

When in communion with our heavenly Father, we are wise to yield our natural man so that it will decrease. When we “let go” of our old nature, God will impart His nature to us— we voluntarily make room for Him. The Bible explains this process in agrarian terms of planting the seed of God’s Word to reap a harvest worthy of Him. God will always bring an increase when we plant the seed of His Word in our hearts and release our old man. In dying to self, we are resurrected to a new life of eternal fruitfulness. (Romans 5-14 NKJV)

Abiding “in the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalms 91:1) engenders surrender of ourselves that, in turn, enables fellowship and oneness with God. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness abiding with His Father to receive His Father’s Life. Jesus knew that His inclinations as a “natural man” had to decrease, and His Father’s transcendent Life had to increase in Him. Later, after His wilderness experience where he communed with His Father, Jesus often said, “My Father and I are one.” (John 10:30)

If you want your faith to grow, abide with Him with a surrendered heart. Receiving His resurrected Life of power, grace, and faith to move mountains, comes through a yielded heart.

Abiding with your Heavenly Father and receiving His Life will make you one with Him, at least as much as is humanly possible this side of heaven. The outcome of being one with the Trinity is the enhanced ability to be one with other Christians—“...so they may be one as We are one.” Charles Spurgeon says it this way, “When we were united by faith to Christ, we were brought into such complete fellowship with Him, that we were made one with Him, and His interests and ours became mutual and identical. We have fellowship with Christ in His love. What He loves we love. He loves the saints—so do we. He loves sinners—so do we.”

It is ours, dear believer, to take time... to linger... to devote our best to His highest and wait on Him to reveal Himself, purposing to take time to exercise awe and holy wonder. Take time to bow low so that our earthly burdens slide off our backs and onto the altar, knowing that He will resurrect those dead things we surrender to Him.

It is yours to abide and experience God’s presence and through His divine impartation, He works in you the faith to believe Him for fruitfulness. Faith in God begets faith in the promise, and in the promise is the answer to prayer. In lingering, you experience God’s love; He wants to impart His love to you. An encounter with God’s love will supersede any earthly desire you brought into the secret place—yield yourself to Him in faith.

Therefore, seek fellowship with God to know and receive Him through inquiring, abiding, and listening. And in unselfish heartfelt devotion, seek as your heart’s cry Him only. Allow God to reveal Himself fully and receive His resurrected Life.

Heavenly Father, I stand amazed at Your goodness. You provided a way to know You, not so I would have to jump through hoops to try to please You but to rest in You. LORD, I so much want to live out Psalms 91 and abide under the shadow of the Almighty, knowing that I am safe and provided for. Help me to calm and listen and hear Your heartbeat: I want to be one with You, just as Jesus was one with You. I bow low at Your altar in worship, allowing the cares and concerns of this world to slide off my back and into Your care. LORD, I so much want to meet with You in the prayer chamber. Teach me to let go of the things that stand between us. Help me release my “white-knuckle” grip on those things I feel desperate for. Your Word tells me that You are in the resurrection business, so I ask You to resurrect the dead things I release to You; give them Your life. I want to glorify You with effective prayer. I ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Excerpted and adapted from, “Prayer by the Book” - Available on Amazon.com by clicking here: Prayer by the Book

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