A Fresh Start: Abiding in Christ

Dannah Gresh: There’s this really great word . . . it’s a Bible word. We don’t use it much in everyday conversation. But this word is packed with meaning—meaning that’ll actually change your life. I’ll tell you what the word is in just a moment.

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend. I’m your host, Dannah Gresh. Today we’ll be hearing from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You’re planted in the Word of God. You’re all in. You’re going to be stable and secure and solid in the Word of God.

Dannah: And we’ll hear from my first-favorite-Christian-author, a woman who’s now with the Lord, Anne Ortlund.

Anne Ortlund: It’s the good that keeps us from the best. On a scale of one to ten, what are you going to eliminate?

Dannah: So, about that wonderful word I promised to tell you about, here it is: it’s the word "abide." I think we generally know what it means. But we don’t often use it casually. Like, “I’m going to abide in the living room for a while.” Maybe you talk like that, but it’s not really my style. But “abide” is still a great word, especially the way God’s Word uses it.

Not too long ago I spoke on this concept of “abiding in the shadow of the Almighty.” 

You might recognize that phrase from the opening words of the ninety-first psalm. Here, let me read it to you. Psalm 91:1–4:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
   will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
   my God, in whom I trust.”

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
   and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his pinions,
   and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. (ESV)

Here’s some of what I shared at True Woman '22 based on those verses.

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Now, it’s there in that place—acknowledging the God Most High—that the psalmist says, “I’m going to dwell there.” I want to land on that word “dwell” for a minute. As I was walking, I was thinking, “Ah, the word ‘dwell’ is interesting.” 

The idea, the invitation here is that God is saying, “Come back to Me, bring your thoughts back to Me, dwell here with Me every moment, every day—return.”

When your thoughts wander and that podcast turns on, make an intentional choice to dwell, return to the thought of the God Most High. What I’ve learned is that as you dwell, intentionally choose to turn your thoughts to the God Most High, then you start to abide.

Here’s what I learned about the word, “abide.” The word abide has a little bit of a nuance, a little bit of a difference from the word “dwell.” Because I wondered, Isn’t [the passage] repeating itself? No. The word abide means “to stay.” You never left!

And sisters, as you begin to dwell on God Most High, you will find that your mind and your heart wander less. They go not so far. The tape, the podcast, that plays in your head, the volume isn’t so loud and you stay in the presence of God . . . because you’ve never, never left!

This isn’t easy, because sometimes our hearts and our lives and our circumstances take us places that we don’t really want to be. But consider this: there is some disagreement over who wrote this psalm and when it was written, but what Bible scholars agree on is this: that those in captivity in Babylon would have sung these words when they were in captivity. They were living where they did not want to live, in circumstances where they did not want to be, having walked into places where their feet did not want to go.

Where have your feet taken you where maybe you didn’t want to go? Where do you live that you’re like, “Uuh!” There, in that place, dwell on the God Most High. Abide in the Almighty there, in that place. 

I’ve discovered that when I dwell, I will abide. It naturally leads one into the other. Now, what is the psalmist doing in these two verses? He is reminding himself what is true. Because, girls, we have amnesia when that podcast plays, don’t we? We get amnesia real fast. We forget who God is and we get so hyper-focused on ourselves.

Are you preparing your heart for those moments? Are you preparing your heart so that when the disaster happens you’re able to dwell and abide in God Most High? Because let me tell you what happens when you do that. You can see it starting in verse 3: 

He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
   and from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with his pinions,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. (vv. 3–4)

I wish I could keep going, because this is so good, but I’ve got to stop and tell you something that God just helped me to see as I was walking and thinking about this verse.

I have peacocks on my farm. They’re cute; they come to my back deck in the morning for peanuts. For one season we had a little white peahen, her name was Roxie, and she was quite the character! She liked to watch me write books. She would sit on the deck and stare at me while I typed on the sofa.

Well, she went missing. I was sad; I missed my companion. While I was still kind of hoping she might return, but mourning her loss, I was having a day that the podcast played very, very loudly. You know those kind of days? And I thought, I’ve just got to get out of the house. Maybe if I go out of the house, maybe I change the setting, my mind will change. 

That’s not really how it works. That’s why we need to dwell on the Most High God. Once I got out there I just said, “Jesus, I need to know that You’re real. I need to know that You see me. I need to know that You care.” And just then (it was dusk), I looked up and far down the pasture I saw this little white dot on top of a post of the pasture field. And I thought to myself, Could that be Roxie?!

So I began to walk up there—it’s about two acres. All the animals on the farm followed “Mom,” there in the pasture; I’m on the outside. They’re all following: the fat donkey, the little mini-goats, the llamas. The horse got there before I did and was pushing against this little white peahen.

Now, that wasn’t right, because Roxie was sweet, but she did not suffer the other animals on the farm; she was very flighty around them. So I knew something was wrong. I pushed the horse away, and I just looked closely, thinking, Okay, what do I do here? White peahen, acting weird. 

And then I saw two little beady black eyes and a tiny little beak sticking out from under her wing! I carried her back to the barn, and right away I thought of this verse: “He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge.” 

Listen to me: if a thirteen pound, frail bird will stand firm against a fifteen hundred pound horse, I want to tell you something, your God is immovable when you have need of shelter! (applause)

But I want you to see something else, as I was walking, this is what happens. Listen, I want to encourage you, don’t study so hard, but meditate on words, on pieces. Ask God’s Spirit to just really teach you, and as I did. The Lord taught me something about feathers that I want you to see.

This is a wing feather; it’s strong. We use these to write with because they’re strong. Look at this down—beautiful, delicate, gentle, comforting. The gentlest part of our God is where He wants to shelter you. 

It’s powerful, it’s immovable, but it’s safe, and it’s healing, and it’s comforting. How do you get to that place? You get there by dwelling. You don’t dwell on the podcast; you dwell on the Most High. He wants you to dwell in that place!

Song: “Abide”

You’re the Way, the Truth, and the Life,
You’re the well that never runs dry.
I’m the branch, and You are the Vine,
Draw me close and teach me to abide.¹

Dannah: Jesus tells us to abide in Him, and to let His words abide in us. That’s how we’re going to grow and be spiritually healthy. And that’s how we’ll produce fruit that brings God glory. It’s what we were made to do, Friend!

We’re talking about this concept of abiding in Him. I think it’s really important here at the beginning of the year. Like it or not, the new year does feel like a fresh start, a time to examine our priorities and make some course corrections if we need to. 

So that passage about the vine and the branches is found in John chapter 15. I think there’s an Old Testament parallel to that same idea. It’s in the very first psalm, Psalm 1. In fact, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth even mentions that. Here’s Nancy.

Nancy: Now as we come to verse 3, we ask the question: “What is the outcome, or the result, of this way of life?” A person who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, who does delight in the law of the Lord, what’s the reward? What’s the payoff? What’s the outcome of his way of life?

Verse 3 tells us, "He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers."

So like a tree that is planted by streams of water, this person is rooted, stable, well nourished, mature, growing, fruitful—not just for the short term—but over the long haul. The older I get, the more I realize how important that is, to be growing and fruitful and vibrant spiritually over the long haul.

This person is steadfast, enduring, flourishing, and as I read this verse and think about those adjectives, I ask myself: “Do these words describe me?”

Now, I’ll just tell you the truth, there have been numerous times even within the last few days when my life would not have been described as stable, mature, steadfast, flourishing, but I want those words to describe me. As I’ve been meditating on this passage, I’ve been going, “Yes! That’s what I want! I want to be this kind of person.”

So I want to take time to day to just unpack that analogy of a tree in verse 3 and say, “What does this have to do with us?” It says this righteous person, this blessed and happy person, is like a tree, and then there are three descriptive phrases.

It’s a tree that’s planted by streams of water, a tree that yields its fruit in its season, and a tree whose leaf does not wither. Let’s look at each of those phrases and see how it describes the righteous person, the person who is on the pathway of godliness.

First of all, like a tree planted by streams of water. I should have done this long ago, but I happened this morning before I came to this recording to look up that word "streams" in the original language, and it wasn’t what I thought.

The word used there is actually used to refer to a small channel of water. It isn’t like a wide, rushing river necessarily, although that concept is used elsewhere in Scripture. But in this case, it’s a small channel of water as in irrigation which suggests to me that the streams of water here may not be natural streams.

And that says something that the water of God’s Word, the water of God’s Spirit is not something we naturally find ourselves having access to. It’s a supernatural provision of God that comes from His heart to us. He is the stream of water that waters our roots and makes us fruitful, a supernatural source or supply of water.

So how is this godly person like a tree planted, firmly planted as the New American Standard says, planted by streams of water? Well, a tree planted by a stream of an irrigation ditch, whichever it may be, has a constant supply of water, a source of nourishment.

And so it is with the person who meditates on God’s Word day and night. As you do that, as you take this daily Bible reading challenge, your soul will be irrigated. It will be watered. You will have a constant supply of spiritual nourishment.

Now, that word "planted"—it’s like a tree planted—the word literally is "transplanted," like a tree that’s been transplanted. It’s not a tree that’s just growing wild. The trees that are in the desert, arid land of the Middle East can easily perish in times of drought.

Here’s a tree, it suggests, that’s been taken out of that dry, barren environment and carefully transplanted into a place where it can not only survive but where it can be secure, and it can thrive, where it can be cultivated and tended so that it can be fruitful and won’t perish.

Well, what a picture is that? Of the life of a child of God. We were by nature wild, dead in sin, but by grace, the grace of God, through faith, we’ve been transplanted. We’ve been taken out of the domain of Satan and darkness and transplanted into the kingdom of God, the kingdom of light.

We’ve been planted in Christ by the grace of God, planted where we have available all the means of grace that we need to live flourishing lives. The means available to us are the Spirit of God, the Word of God. The supply of God’s Word that we delight and meditate on, that’s what nourishes us, and we’ve been planted in that place.

Trees get beauty and get strength from their roots which are generally unseen, hidden beneath the surface. Those roots draw sustenance and life, strength and nourishment from the water. I see that as a picture of what it means to abide in Christ, to live in Him, to put down your roots deep into the soil of His character and His heart and His ways and His Word.

In the Psalms, throughout the Psalms, you often see the psalmist, many times David, struggling with adverse circumstances, but it always comes back to the fact that he’s still solid, he’s still secure. I will not fear what man can do to me. Why? Because he’s like a tree firmly planted by rivers of water. He says, “I will find my refuge, I will find my strength in God; that’s where I draw my life.”

When you’re firmly planted in Christ and in His Word, you don’t have to be afraid of rejecting the counsel of the ungodly. You’re not going to be shaken easily by what others think about you or your Christianity. You’ve meditated on the Word of God, you’ve delighted in it, and that has become your pole star for direction. You’re operating through that grid. You’re planted in the Word of God. You’re all in. You’re going to be stable and secure and solid in the Word of God.

Dannah: That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, talking about the concept of abiding, or being rooted in the Word of God.

Let me ask you: where does your mind, where does your heart abide?

I've got to admit, if I’m not careful, I go on autopilot and I abide and dwell in my newsfeed, the social media scroll that I’m so easily addicted to, my work. It’s easy to let life and comfort determine what I abide in, and that approach often distracts me from abiding in Christ.

Nancy had the opportunity of talking to one of my favorite authors about how to avoid the drift! Anne Ortlund was a pastor’s wife and beloved Christian speaker before she went home to be with Jesus in 2013. Anne was talking about how to be a truly beautiful woman, when she said this:

Anne: So we’re to love the Lord. We’re to glorify God—the Son, the Father, the Holy Spirit. We’re to love our fellow believers and pray for their wellbeing and minister to their needs, and we’re to witness to the non-believers.

If you turn back a page to John 15, you’ve got the same thing. Around the Upper Room table, He gives His final discourse and says some of the sweetest, deepest things of all after Judas has left the room and He could talk freely.

In chapter 15:1-11, He talks about abiding in the vine, and the branch must abide there. That’s priority one; just settling down, making yourself at home in Him, making Him your most familiar surroundings. “In Him we live and move and have our being,” in that intimate fellowship.

Then in verses 12-17, He begins and ends the same way: “Love each other. This is My command: Love each other.” In between He talks about friendships, and that’s priority, two.

Then in verses 18 through the end of the chapter, He’s talking about the world. “The world will hate you. Don’t be surprised. It hated Me, too,” and so on about the world, and it ends “when the Counselor comes—that’s the Holy Spirit—He will testify about Me and you must also testify.”

So three priorities in John chapter 15: abide in Christ; love each other in the body; and witness to this needy world.

There’s a three-fold job for the beautiful woman.

Dannah: She went on to say that setting those kinds of priorities means eliminating some things from your life and concentrating on the right things. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, talking to Anne Ortlund.

Nancy: Let me just back up a second. Eliminate and concentrate. Let’s make that practical. You’re not talking about eliminating your kids.

Anne: Sometimes you’d like to. (Laughter)

Nancy: But we’re not advising that.

Anne: No.

Nancy: You can’t eliminate cooking if you’re in a season of life where you have a family that is needing to be fed and wanting meals. So, practically, what are we going to eliminate, and what are we going to concentrate on to become this beautiful woman?

Anne: You need a big back door, and you need a big front door. Suppose somebody says to you, “Would you teach this third grade Sunday school class?” You think, “Oh, good night, I’m so busy. I can’t. I’d love to, but I just can’t do it. My life is full.”

A woman who knows how to eliminate and concentrate, she’ll say, “Wonderful. I think the Spirit is calling me to do that. What must go in order that I can take that on?” She’s got this big back door that she’s letting things leave from when she takes new things in the front door.

It’s the same with your closet. Suppose you buy a new blouse. Okay, then give one blouse away. Or you buy a new pair of shoes. Give away a pair of shoes so that you always keep the same number of clothes in your closet. This is talked about in Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman. Then your closet doesn’t get stuffed and cluttered the way your time can get stuffed and cluttered.

We need to see what’s most important and say, “Lord, I will give myself to that,” and that means letting go and letting go and letting go of stuff, of time-consuming things. 

Nancy: It’s a matter really of being sensitive to the Spirit and knowing what God wants for me in this season of my life. One season may look different than another when it comes to eliminating and concentrating.

Anne: Boy, they do. And sometimes it will mean eliminating things that we actually love.

Nancy: Good things.

Anne: I heard a pastor say one day, “Quit something today.” He said, “It won’t be hard to quit something you hate. Quit something you really love but you know is keeping you from mission.” That challenged me. I’ve been seeking ever since to pare down and pare down more and more of the things I can do without, things that I might even love but that are keeping me from the best.

We Christians probably aren’t going to rob any banks today. Those are not our temptations. But it’s the good that keeps us from the best. So we discipline ourselves.

Nancy: I know that you have practiced for many years just the discipline of getting that time alone with the Lord and in His Word.

In the years when you had four small children and you were a busy pastor’s wife, you were traveling, you were writing books, you were serving with your husband, how did you manage to keep that first thing first, getting your time with the Lord?

Anne: You get accountable to other people. Since 1970 I’ve had a small group every year of usually five gals, I make the sixth, that meet weekly. One of the things we do is write our quiet times. We write what we learn in the Word. The two things that Paul asked on the Damascus Road—Saul, actually—“Lord, who are You?” and second, “Lord, what would You have me do?” So I write everything that I see He is to be . . . I’m learning to know Him better. Then I write all the ways I could obey what I am seeing.

Then we write our prayers. We use A-C-T-S: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, when you’re asking Him for things. We write them out.

Every week when we come together—this sounds juvenile—but we have “show-and-tell time.” They show what they’ve written that week, and if they’ve skipped days, it shows, and if I’ve skipped days, it shows.

Before I started writing my prayers and my quiet time, I really had the impression that I was having more quiet time than I was. But when I see it on paper, I say, “Oh, my goodness. I missed Tuesday altogether, and Wednesday was really in a hurry there, and Thursday was great. I spent more time with the Lord.” It measures what I’m doing.

Nancy: So that’s one key discipline of a beautiful woman that is really foundational.

Anne: It really is. When we get married, we stand there at the altar, and we pronounce these beautiful vows before the people of God and before God Himself and before the minister of God, and that’s wonderful.

What if when the wedding is over we say, “Hey, that was cool. Let’s get together some time. I’d like to see you again. Maybe we can have lunch some day”? That would be a pretty dumb marriage.

If we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and say, “Well, that was great, one of these days I’ll get together with You, Lord.” That would be a pretty dumb relationship, too. We need Him. We need Him. We need Him, over and over and over and over. The more we feed on Him, the hungrier we get, and the sweeter it gets.

Dannah: Oh, how I’d have loved to have been a part of that conversation. Again, that’s Anne Ortlund, who’s now in the presence of Jesus, speaking with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. I actually attended a wedding where Anne Ortlund’s husband, Ray, officiated. I tried to get the courage to go introduce myself all day long—never got it! But oh, how I loved her!

Hey, side note, if you ever see me at a wedding, please come say, “Hi!”

Well, today we heard several wonderful word pictures that help us understand what it means to abide in Christ. 

• There was my peahen, Roxie, with the chick under her wing. 
• There’s the branch that draws its life from the vine.
• The tree firmly planted by streams of water, receiving nourishment from its roots.
• And the newlywed couple who want to spend time together as much as possible, so they can truly know and love each other.

So here at the beginning of this new year, what step are you going to take to do a better job of abiding in God and in His Word? 

Can I challenge you with something? Can you commit to spending some time reading the Bible and praying for thirty days in a row? In fact, if you sign up for our 30-Day Bible Reading Challenge at our website, ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend, we’ll send you an email every day to remind you and encourage you in your walk with the Lord. Check it out by going to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and clicking on today’s program. You’ll see a link there to the Bible Reading Challenge. Again, it’s ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend, and today’s program is titled "A Fresh Start: Abiding in Christ."

I hope you’ll keep listening throughout the week to our daily program, Revive Our Hearts, as Nancy will continue helping us get in the Word and get the Word into us. And on Thursday and Friday, I’ll be sharing more about how we can learn to abide in Christ. It really is one of my favorite things to talk about!

I’m Dannah Gresh. Thank you for joining me today. I’ll see you next time for Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts Ministries. Calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

¹ “Abide (Acoustic)” – Single, Dwell Songs, ℗ 2021 Dwell Songs, exclusively distributed by Integrity Music.

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