Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to take a number of road trips where some of them included traversing various high mountain passes with insane curves and turns that will test your driving skills...and bravery. I found this to be especially true on those roads where there is no guardrail separating your vehicle from the steep cliff drop offs. Can I just tell you that you don’t want to be the passenger looking out the window on such drives. IYKYK

Yet, oddly enough, if you are driving those roads and some fog, or even darkness prevents you from seeing the reality that awaits you should you make one unplanned, reckless or careless swerve, it can produce almost a deceptive and false security since you can’t see the potential danger that lingers. Does that make sense? But when the fog lifts or the darkness fades because of the morning light that dawns...and you begin to see clearly, then your driving takes on a whole new approach and mindset. Trust me on that one. A little bit of ‘healthy fear’ goes a long way in keeping you alive while driving on any road, and in your lane, in both those ‘natural’ and ‘spiritual’ lanes.

Friends...this word picture explains how I found myself coming to abide in Jesus like I never had before. If you read yesterday’s longer than normal post, I’m attempting here to explain how I began...to ‘abide in Jesus’ in a way that I had forgotten even existed. You just hear His voice when He says: “Turn here”, or “don’t say that”, or “don’t look in that direction or you will be drawn over the edge!”. You just want to obey Him as He leads you.  Again, that is what followers do according to John 10:27.

What I have come to learn and experience, personally...is that one does not begin ‘abiding in Jesus’ as a result of ‘intellectual’ pursuit and study. (John 5:39; 2 Tim. 3:7) I also must add that abiding in Jesus does not come about because a person is ‘emotionally manipulated’ by ‘fear’, or ‘guilted in’ to abiding in Jesus. On the contrary, I would submit to you that one truly turns to God with all their heart upon having an ‘aha moment’ at the realization of the condition one is in, and how Jesus truly is the only way out in order to be rescued... or ‘saved’. You just want to 'sit up' and pay closer attention to he One who is your 'only way out'. 

Many people start a walk of faith ...professing to have ‘believed in’ or ‘accepted Christ’. But you know as well as I do not everyone will ‘finish’ that walk, or ‘race’. (2 Tim. 4:7; Matt. 24:13). There is an interesting exchange that takes place between Jesus and a good number of His disciples found in John 6. He had been teaching what many thought to be a ‘hard saying’ (60) and after further consideration, we are told that ‘many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.” (66)

Jesus then turned to the twelve and asked them if they too, wanted to ‘go away’. (67). Peter’s ‘aha moment’ was verbalized by him asking: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (68)

Now this is not to say that Peter had ‘arrived’, or had been ‘perfected’; but there was something within him that confirmed what Jesus would later proclaim for all the world to hear: “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6). You just know...that you know...that you know...this to be true. Which then leads me to the next step that is taken that I’m sure some might take exception to, and it has to do with an often, over-looked detail...or condition one must agree to before you can even begin...abiding in Jesus. And I will share that tomorrow with you, Lord willing.