Conversational Prayer-Sonnets and Scriptures
February 16 ~
"Abide in Me, and I in you" ... "If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned" ... Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you ... To commit sin is to break God's law: sin, in fact, is lawlessness ... All who keep his commandments abide in him, and he in them ... No one who abides in Him sins ... He who commits sin is of the devil ... the man who sins is a child of the devil ...
Independence?
To not abide in Thee is sin, O Lord?
For if I don't (Thou make clear in Thy Word)
I'll be a branch cast forth from Thee, the Vine,
and face the fire, no more a friend of Thine?
And, more, when I thus sin I'm of the foe:
the devil? From such facts these others flow:
At any moment I'm of Thee or him!
I'm either of obedience or sin!
Hence I don't independently exist:
of Thee or Satan doth my life consist!
My prime concern should therefore always be
that Thou -
not Satan! -
be the Life in me:
Source of my thoughts, of my prevailing "I"
so Truth and Love -
Thee -
I'll be living by!
__________________
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness ... And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming ... I have been crucified with Christ: the life I now live is not my life, but the life which Christ lives in me; and my present bodily life is lived by faith in the Son of God ... my present life is not that of the old "I," but the living Christ within me ...
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