Abiding in Christ

Abiding in Christ

If there is a chapter in the Bible that focuses on the core of Christianity, it is John 15. Here Jesus tells us, "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (NKJV). The chapter goes on to clarify this by saying “abide in My love.”

“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ” (John 17:3 NKJV). It is the love of God that motivates our love and positive choices. It is the love of God that inspires our faith. It is also the love of God that delivers us from our rigid moral makeup. Abiding, or living in the experience of God’s love is therefore the foundation for all else in the Christian life.

Psalms 26:3 also points out this spiritual reality. "You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trust in You."

Many Biblical stories present core spiritual principles at the same time. Peter walking on the water and the brass serpent raised up in the wilderness both point out that we shouldn’t deal with our sin, troubles, and temptations (angry waves, serpents) by focusing on them. We must keep our eyes on Jesus and His love and power. It is as we take hold of these by faith that our problems loose their power to sink or poison us.

However, we must see God’s love correctly or we will not be drawn to it naturally, like we are to a beautiful flower or sunset. Many simply make thinking about God a religious task that bears little fruit. They fail to relate to God according to the principles of grace and thus their picture of God fails to draw their hearts to it.

The little book, “The Practice of the Presence of God”, is often considered to be the essence of Christianity. In it Brother Lawrence states “that we should establish ourselves in a sense of God's presence by continually conversing with Him. … We should feed and nourish our soul with high notions of God which would yield us great joy in being devoted to Him.”

Obedience, love, the 10 commandments, are all meant to be the fruit of abiding in God’s love. Good works can never be commanded. They are not simply a choice. “For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law” (Galatians 3:21).

Paul, when writing to the Ephesians was keenly aware of the importance of their understanding of God’s love. “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, … that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ (the sense of His love) may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height — to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:14-19 NKJV).

We must remember that we will have a hard time abiding in God’s love if we allow our lives to be crippled by our longings and worries. We must let go and let God. We must choose to accept our circumstances, because God is working in them all for our good, and be content.