Am I fulfilling the ministry of the interior life, taking time alone with the Father to intercede for others in prayer? I need not worry that the moments I claim for prayer are selfish. There is no danger of infatuation or pride in intercession; it is a hidden ministry which brings forth the fruit that glorifies the Father. Am I slacking off in my spiritual life, allowing my spiritual energies to be frittered away? Or am I learning to remain in Jesus? To remain in Jesus is to concentrate my spiritual energies around a single point: the atonement of the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I must begin to realize this central point of power in my life. Do I give one minute out of sixty to concentrate upon it? \u201cIf you remain in me\u201d means \u201cIf you continually act and think and work on the basis of my atonement.\u201d What holds the most power over me right now? Is it my job? Serving others? Trying to work for God? It isn\u2019t the thing I spend the most time on that shapes me the most; it\u2019s the thing that exerts the greatest power over me. What ought to exert the greatest power over me is Jesus Christ. I must decide to be limited in my affinities, to choose carefully where I place my attention. If Jesus Christ is more and more my dominating interest, every phase of my life will bear fruit for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus says that if we remain in him and his words remain in us, God will answer our prayers. Do we recognize this truth? \u201cBut,\u201d you say, \u201csuppose I ask for something not according to God\u2019s will?\u201d You won\u2019t\u2014not if you\u2019re fulfilling Jesus\u2019s wish that you remain in him. The disciple who remains in Jesus is the will of God. The choices this disciple makes, though they appear to be made freely, are actually God\u2019s foreordained decrees. Mysterious? Yes. Logically contradictory and absurd? Yes. But a glorious truth to those who remain in him.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Am I fulfilling the ministry of the interior life, taking time alone with the Father to intercede for others in prayer? I need not worry that the moments I claim for prayer …<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":2054,"template":"","collection":[],"class_list":["post-2590","modern-classic","type-modern-classic","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic\/2590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/modern-classic"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic\/2590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=2590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}