Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the Sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christians' armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

All right, welcome back, day three. Today we're going to talk about loving the Lord your God with all of your soul. This is about our relationship with God. This is like the spiritual aspect of our life that we would think about. And the way I know this is because Luke 252, the Bible says that Jesus grew in favor with God. So are you growing in your relationship with God? John chapter 15 says this. This is Jesus preaching. He says, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Now, these next verses, if you're familiar with Bible study, you've heard this 10,000 times and you take it for granted. But I want you to consider for just a second the sovereign king of the universe, the one that will sit in judgment over us all, the one that spoke into very existence, the cosmos in which we live. He gives us this invitation. He says, Abide in me and I in you. Abide is a relational term. Um, Jesus is saying, Hey, come here, come close to me, and I will come close to you. As a branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. So are you abiding in Christ? Is your soul growing in its yearning and longing for Christ? Now, the the illustration that Jesus is giving here is that of a garden. Like our life is like a garden. He is the source of life for us, and we are to be connected to him. And God is the vine dresser or the gardener. And what you'll notice here is there's some things that he's gonna feed, and there's some things that he's gonna cut out. So let me put it on the bottom shelf. That means there needs to be some things in your life that you feed that stir your affections for Christ, and there's some other things in your life that you need to cut out. Now, the the Puritans used to call this mortification and vivification. To mortify means to kill, that you should be killing sin or it will be killing you. To vivify means to bring to life, to add fertilizer to this. So let me ask you, what is the sin in your life that you need to cut out? Not play with it, not pet it, not try to tame it, but what are the branches in your life that need to be cut off and thrown away and burned in the fire? And then not only that, sometimes there are things in your life and it's not sin, it's just stupid. It's things that just entangle you and hinder a growing relationship with Jesus. Some of you are way too into a hobby. Some of you are obsessed with like Netflix. There's nothing wrong with a show or two, but if you're spending extensively more time catching up on the latest Netflix show and you're not in the Word, and you wonder why why your relationship with the Lord isn't growing, well, it's because of this. And then not only that, you've got to ask, not only would I do I need to cut some things out, I've got to feed the things that stir my affections for Jesus. And listen, I I've been doing this a long time. I've been on church staff since I was 19. I'm 52 now. And here's what I know. What you have to do to feed and fuel that relationship with Jesus is some combination of God's presence, God's people, and God's word. That's right. God's presence. Things like worship and prayer and going to church and worshiping with the body of Christ, you're gonna have to have that in your life. God's people, we talked about this yesterday. You need some brothers in your life that are around you, that their shields of faith are covering you to help prevent the fiery darts of the enemy penetrating you. And you have to have God's word in your life. So let me ask you, what do you need to take out? What do you need to add in so that you can love the Lord your God with all of your soul? And in James chapter 4, verse 8, there's one of the most incredible promises in the entire Bible. James, the brother of Jesus, says this on God's behalf: draw near to me, and I will draw near to you. That means this is an effort that God will meet you in every single time. So, what are the things that are keeping you, your soul, from drawing near to God? Now, again, you may be a Christian, you may have put your faith in Jesus. He's like, Neat, you're already clean because of that. But are you doing the kind of things to cultivate your relationship with Jesus? What do you need to cut out and what do you need to add? Because when you do these things, the promise of the God of the universe is if you will draw near to me, then I promise you I will draw near to you. Love the Lord your God with all your soul.

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