Returning and abiding in him.
God has been calling man unto him from the very beginning. The plan of salvation began from the beginning of creation, when God told the serpent that Christ was going to bruise its head (Gen3:15); proclaiming the victory over him. From then on, through the judges and prophets he called man unto him for salvation. He required man to remain in his saving plan and persevere therein. But they only lasted for a while, after a time man would go back to their wicked ways and leave God. Then Jesus came declaring plainly what God wanted for man, and that was to abide in him. He said that the benefits of abiding in God was that if they would ask anything he would do it (Jh15:7). That not abiding in God is risking being cast out from his presence into outer darkness (Jh15:6). But there is a danger we risk when we have convinced ourselves that we are abiding in him, and we are slowly drifting away.
Malachi 3:7-10
7 Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye said, wherein shall we return?
8 Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
9 Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.
10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.
The children of Israel thought; that because they were in good standing with God because they were only doing some of the ordinances, and not all of them. For God it was and is either you are all in or all out, there is no halfway point. God calls the halfway point lukewarm, and he pukes such individuals out from him (Re3:16). God alerted his people that they needed to return back to him and begin to keep his ordinances. But something slipped from their God radar. They were robbing God from something important to him, their tithes and offerings; their entire nation was guilty. Keeping things from God is robbing him. To the people of Israel was their giving, but to us it can be anything. The Psalmist questioned where he could hide from his presence because he is everywhere (Ps139:7). Everything we have is God given or permitted. Adam and Eve thought that they could hide from God after they sinned (Ge3:8). Luke writes in the letter to the Hebrews that nothing is hid from his sight, everything is laid naked before him (He4:13).
There is a blessing when we hide not from God, and that is that he opens the windows of blessings in our lives. Also, he rebukes the devil from the things we possess and does not allow him to destroy them (Ma3:11). The fruits of the things we do will flourish in its due time.
Genesis 3:15
15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
John 15:7
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
John 15:6
6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
Revelation 3:16
16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Psalms 139:7
7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
Genesis 3:8
8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
Hebrews 4:13
13 Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Malachi 3:11
11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts.