Pre-Decide: Getting Closer To God

``I think a lot of times we we feel like we're just not close with God. We're not really living the life that God wants us to. And I think that's true for Christians and non Christians alike. We feel sometimes a disconnect from God. And what we're gonna be talking about today is how we can make a decision, pre decide to be close to God, and what that looks like if we pre decide that's what we wanna be doing with our lives. [00:08:14] (27 seconds)  #PreDecideToAbide

So we know different situations are gonna come up, and then we can already pre decide before we get into that situation how we're gonna respond, how we're gonna act, what we're gonna say, what we're gonna do. Well, if we're feeling disconnected from God and we wanna be closer to God, then we can pre decide. Here's what we're gonna do when we start feeling that way. And scripture gives us some clear easy to follow instructions, to understand at least they're easy. They're not always easy to carry out, but they're easy to understand and we can pre decide we're gonna do these things. [00:08:59] (36 seconds)

So so I want you to think through this. Jesus is saying, he's using a a real life illustration here of a probably people would think a grapevine in that day and time, and and they have the the grapevine. The vine is what connects to the soil, the nutrients come through the vine, and they flow through to the branches so that the branches can then bear the fruit that they are designed to bear. [00:09:49] (23 seconds)

So he says, here's how this is gonna work. As long as you abide in me, we're the branches. He's the vine. If we could keep our branches connected to the vine, we'll have the resources we need to produce the fruit, the fruitful life that God wants us to live. But if we get disconnected from the vine, he says, apart from me, you can do nothing. [00:10:12] (23 seconds)

You see, that's where the disconnect can come. If we don't continually abide where God wants us to abide, remain, dwell where God wants us to dwell and fellowship with him and communion with him and relationship with him. That's what he wants from all of us. It's for us to be in that relationship with him where we're so close that we are being fed by him. [00:10:47] (23 seconds)

Jesus is the word made flesh. If we're gonna be close to Jesus, if we're gonna stay connected to Jesus, he's gone on to be back at the right hand of the father, but he has breathed into scripture the revelation of who he is and what he wants for us in our lives. So if we want to have that relationship with Jesus, a huge part of maintaining that closeness with him will be to be devoted to the apostles' teaching, to the teachings in scripture. [00:17:40] (33 seconds)

So how are they gonna survive? They worked together. They worked in fellowship with each other. They would visit with each other in each other's homes. They would eat together regularly. They would spend time together doing the the learning that they needed to do to grow in their knowledge of scripture and and what it meant to follow Jesus. They did that for each other. They took care of each other's needs and they did it through the local church. [00:20:22] (28 seconds)

Friends, as we're trying to live out this Christian life, if we've pre decided to be close to god, here's an intimate thing that god has revealed in his word that can help us maintain that close relationship. You see, when we come together to partake of the Lord's Supper together as the family of God, having this meal together with your brothers and sisters, there is something that makes our relationship stronger when we do that. It's like a family that sits down and has a meal together, and maybe they invite some other friends to join them for the meal. There's something about coming together for meals together that enhances the closeness and the fellowship of those relationships. [00:25:47] (39 seconds)