In His message to the disciples in the upper room, Jesus instructed them [and us] to abide in Him. What does abiding in Christ mean? Is there something here that God wants us to experience that goes beyond some doctrinal position? In his book, Abide In Christ, Andrew Murray tells us simply to abide-to “remain” in Jesus Himself. Yet, what does this really mean for us? Is it some experience only attainable by a few giants in the faith?

When Jesus spoke to the disciples about spiritual things, He often used nature as a picture to help his disciples understand His point. For Instance, when He spoke of His return, He used the fig tree. When He spoke of the Kingdom, He used the illustration of the sower who went out to sow his seeds in the field. When He spoke of the new birth, He used the illustration of the wind. And in John 15, when Jesus spoke of abiding in Him, He used the illustration of the vine and the branches. Jesus said, ”I am the vine and ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.” [John 15:5 KJV] Think about this picture of abiding. What image is called up? The vine is the very source of life for the branches. As the vine begins the growing season, the branches grow out of the vine itself. They share in very the same life. In a sense, the full, luxuriant branches are a picture of how much life is in the vine itself. The fruit borne by the branches are the fruit of the vine itself. And if cut apart from the vine, the branches will die.

Clearly, the principle of abiding in the vine is crucial to our Christian life. And this impressed the Apostle John so much that not only did he devote a whole part of his gospel to it, he also comes back to the principle of abiding in his epistles [I John 2:27 KJV] where he talks of the “anointing.” In the Old testament the anointing oil was a picture of the Holy Spirit. John teaches that the anointing [the Holy Spirit] abides in us and teaches us to abide in Him. John then concludes the passage with, “and now, little children, abide in Him.” [ I John 2:28 KJV] If Jesus Himself, the Holy Spirit as the anointing, and the Apostle John all emphasize the principle of abiding, then we, too should pay close attention, for surely this is the key to living the Christian life.

The question is, what must the branch do to abide in the vine? If I’m a branch how do I abide? First we have to understand that if we are true Christians, doctrinally our position is already one of abiding in the Vine, Christ. That’s why Jesus said I am the vine and you, speaking of true believers, are the branches. The branch automatically abides in the vine. The branch shouldn’t have to struggle to abide, it’s already been placed into the vine. We, too, have been put into Christ according to Acts 17:28: “For in him we live, and move, and have our being.” We have even been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. [Eph.1:4] So, if we have been placed into Christ, that is, into the Vine, all the life of the vine flows through us the branches. If this is our position in Christ—and it is--why are we admonished as believers to abide, and why are we instructed that we must abide or we will not bear fruit? Does this make sense? On one hand we are told that we are already in the vine, and the next thing we are told is to make sure we abide.

There is a reason. It is that instead of just abiding and letting God’s life flow through us to bear fruit, we have a tendency to struggle to be a good testimony and bear the fruit ourselves. Even as Christians we try to manufacture a life of our own. We struggle to maintain a certain identity. We as branches go through spasms and contortions struggling in ourselves to be “the perfect branch” as we think we should be. We try to impress others with our spirituality when God just wants us to be what we are so that His life can flow through us. Now just being what we are doesn’t mean that we should be fleshly, fulfilling all the desires of our flesh. What it does mean is that God has accepted us just the way we are. We have our own idiosyncrasies. We have been raised in different families and have gone through various experiences making us who we are today. We are all different. It’s wonderful to know that God’s life can and will flow through our personality. We don’t have to try and impress others! We don’t want people to be impressed with us anyway do we? Wouldn’t we rather have others impressed with Jesus who is living in us as our life? Do you want to be a Christian whom others talk about, saying, “What a spiritual Christian you are,” focusing all their attention upon you, or would you rather them say ,”I don’t know what it is about that person, but when I’m around him/her I feel like I’ve been with Jesus.”

We then need to ask ourselves why we don’t just abide and bear much fruit? If we are honest, we will have to confess that we have certain fears that keep us from abiding. Our main fear is that we are not doing our part. But in reality, God is just sitting back waiting for us to come to the end of our rope so that He can take over. I will never forget a comment that Billy Graham made: “It’s not hard to live the Christian life it’s impossible. In fact, there’s only one man who can live the Christian life and that’s Jesus.” Jesus Himself said, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” [Matt 11:28 KJV] Does this sound like struggling? Jesus wants us to rest and allow Him to live His life through us. [See Gal 2:20 KJV] Scripture states, "There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God." [Heb 4:9 KJV] When we struggle, the struggling actually gets in the way of what Jesus wants to do through us. We somehow feel that doing something for Him is more important than letting Him do what He wants through us. The swimmer who is drowning in the water must stop his struggling before he can be saved, but of course he’s afraid. He feels that if he stops struggling, he will drown. Isn’t it natural to want to survive? In this situation the lifeguard must wait until the struggling swimmer quits his struggling before he can save him. In the same way, because we are so hardheaded and strong in ourselves, Jesus many times has to wait until we give up before He can step in.

We have seen that God has placed us into Christ, and given us the Holy Spirit to empower our daily living. We now need to look to Him and rest in Him. We thank you, Lord, for all you have already done to really be our Way in this earthly life.

See "The Cost of Abiding " for more information on the subject of Abiding in Christ.