If you abide in My Word…

“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” ~ John‬ ‭8‬:‭31‬-‭36‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Jesus said, if we abide in His Word, we are truly His disciples.

Jesus’ Word is not like anyone else’s word. His Word has creative power to cause something to actually come into existence, where before there was only nothingness. This is (Bara) in Hebrew. “To create something out of nothing.”

Our words are not like Jesus’ words. Abiding in the words of Jeff, might just make you dumber than you were before, but abiding in the Words of Jesus has the power to bring spiritual life out of spiritual death, to change you from the inside out, to create a new heart within you, and to cause you to long for the sanctification that only God can provide….holiness, righteousness, and access to the very presence of the Father Himself.

If we abide in His word, we ARE His disciples, and we WILL know the truth, and the truth WILL set us free.

To abide in this sense means to remain…to stay connected to…to dwell with and within His Word. In another place Jesus said, “If you “abide” in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.” (John 15:7). He says that those who abide in His Word are TRULY His disciples, and His Word abides in them as well.

In other words, if we remain, stay connected to, and dwell with/within His Word, His Word remains in us, and by this we will know the truth, and that truth will “set us free”.

The Jews tried to tell him, “We are slaves to no one!”, but he countered that they were in fact slaves. They were slaves to sin. Sin was their cruel master, and kept them chained in darkness, in bondage to Satan, without hope of redemption.

This is the condition of everyone around us in this world today who does not know the freedom that Christ provides. But Jesus offers them freedom in Him, through faith in Him, through abiding in His Word. And not freedom only, but sonship. Adoption into the family of God.

“Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us that we should be called the children of God.” (1 John 3:1)

We are truly His disciples if we abide in His Word. And if we abide in His word, we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free.

When we are His, when we abide in Him, when we have known the truth, and the truth has set us free, He takes us from being slaves to sin and sets us free, and He makes us into sons of God, who remain in His house forever.

Praise the Lord!

Do we know that we are truly His disciples?

Let’s begin today to come unto Jesus, to abide in His eternal word, immersing ourselves in its depths, submitting to its creative power within us to replace death with life, and slavery with freedom, that we might become true disciples, and not disciples only, but children of the Father, welcomed into His house, where we will always have a place at His table.