Abide

The Cove.............a place of inspiration. Where the agenda belongs to God!

While in the beautiful mountains in Asheville, NC......... Amy and I had to sit in silence and draw near to the King. We prayed for a transformation of our hearts. It was there on the mountain that the Lord himself took me to a deep, dark , cold place!

  ³⁴ “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  John 13: 34-35.

I decided to hike up as far as I could and pray along the way for the perfect spot to spend time with God. After an hour of hiking and praying...........I came to a place where I felt in my spirit I needed to stop and pray.
As I was standing at the edge of a ledge.........trying to breath.......the sun warming my face.....it was then that I saw it.................the blackest...........deadest forest in the whole 1600 acres.
      Fear (my old faithful friend) ran through my body............me trying to breath..........it was at that moment I begin to understand what the Holy Spirit was showing me........that I must truly die..................die to self..............die to my will................and surrender my all.
The FEAR...................did I really have to die?
     Maybe it was the dead everywhere.................was how my life was supposed to be? Me dead to self? 
Something is holding me back................from the dying. What is it that I can't let go of ?  Is it me in my me-ism little world screaming please..........more of the easy? (Anything that you put before God is an idol.)

How can I become the one with Him........when I can't even let go and surrender? Is there such a thing as abide?

As I lay on my back wrestling with;  "who am I really?".......Praying my heart could be his altar. It was then I could hear deep down in my soul..............SEEK.....SEEK.............SEEK......SEEK me with the all of you.

What is the pleasure of Christ?


Am I seeking only..............to have God's blessings while I live my own life?

I can feel the wind starting to whip...........the leaves are falling...........it is then all alone in the mountains...............where God himself has taken me.....a place where the trees are dead...........that I cry out to God:
"LORD, keep me from EVERY sin.

The branches are swaying to the rhythm of the wind..............and they are calling..............me and you to an ABSOLUTE SURRENDER! He wants possession = unbroken fellowship.......by abiding in him.
                                                               Death = Resurrection

Why do I hold myself captive?...................Is it because I don't want to be the FREE?  Refusing to give up my will..............  Scared of disappointing the King?  I crave the easy remember.........spiritual laziness it seems. Pipe dreams I tell myself..........I am just a want a be!

¹⁴ We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. ¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
²¹ So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!  (Romans 7: 14-25) 


        The more we die to self.........................the deeper our peace.
To die to self is to embrace God's will.  After all aren't all Christians the walking dead? Crucified and dead.............unknowing, at the time of birth partaking of His death............ but alive in Christ!
So why do we believers run from our death and ressurection?  Because our greatest enemy in this life is our very own SELF!!!!!! 


The heart beat of the old me can thump in and out like there never was a death..........it is war for my very own soul. But those nail pierced hands are waving to us saying........"Are you ready? Ready to give up SELF to death?  To give up self entirely to death on the cross to be kept there until self is wholly brought under the power of Christ?

Yes abiding does exist...........but to truly abide in Christ.........prepare..........to part from self,
aka....(FLESH)  FOREVER!!!!!
(Praise God that in the middle of all the dead trees were tiny sprouts of green life coming up through the deadness!!!!!)
all of grace,
Robbie