Abiding in Christ
At camp this past week I was presented with the question "How do we begin to penetrate the Spiritual Darkness that surrounds us, and do it effectively?" I was taken to John 15 and the answer is by abiding in Christ. As I have studied and prayed over this chapter I want to take you deeper into it and expose some fascinating truths that lay within it. This post will be an overview of it, and the next several posts will focus on a few verses and truths at a time.
First and foremost we see a beautiful picture in verse one alone. It is the picture of the vineyard. In particular this is pointing to Isaiah 5 and 27. In Chapter 5 of Isaiah it is the Song of the Vineyard which expresses God's indictment of the wicked leadership that had ruined his vineyard, Israel. We then see the transformation over in chapter 27 which is the Redemption pointing to Jesus. It is the Father restoring. In the 23rd Psalm we read that he restores our soul. When we restore something, or put a lot of work into something like a garden or whatever our hobby is, we say, "Yeah, my blood, sweat, and tears when into it." When the stop and moment and consider this statement against the Father as our Gardener as the NIV puts it, and consider what Jesus did for us on the cross. Literally, blood, sweat, and tears goes into making us the children we ought of to be of God.
I think that same saying can be said of believers at times. Abiding in Christ is no easy task, when we abide we endure, we wait, accept, dwell, trust, and rest. It affects every part of our life and our individual ministries for the Kingdom of God. We abide through prayer (huge one!), by faith, and in reading His Word. Reading His Word is what prunes us, the Greek for prunes means "he cleans." When we read our Bible and recieve the truth and apply it we are allowing God to cleanse us and wash away sin that may be brewing in our mind or heart. John tells us in his first chapter that Jesus is the Word. He makes me clean, through His blood I am clean. Mark 4:19 reminds us to, "be careful not to choke the Word." This happens by being overtaken by circumstances in our life, and as a result we become unfruitful.
Another way we remain in Christ is through relationships. God as our gardener is such a picture. If we were to go back to the 23rd Psalm, we see that He makes us lie down in green pastures. Green pastures don't just happen, it takes a lot of time and cultivating of the soil to make a pasture green and lush. So it is when we prunes...when He cuts away at things that don't need to be there so we can be healthy. The whole idea behind abiding in Christ is our complete dependency in Him. Jesus says very clearly a branch that is apart from me dies and is thrown out in the burn pile. Apart from Jesus we don't survive. The Gospels can be into 3 categories of people that Jesus had a relationship with, who He was investing in.
1. The Father
2. The disciples/other believers
3. The lost
Our relationships should look that this as well. Without these relationships we become ineffective, and are no longer abiding in Christ the way we should be. All of them require us to be in tune with Him. Of course at the base of every relationship is love. The last command in this chapter. Love is laying our lives down for the sake of another. This is as selfless as you can get. Jesus paid the ultimate price in dying. Whatever makes up our life and we give it to another sacrificially, that is laying our lives down for them. That is love.
When we do all of these things Jesus tells us to ask whatever we wish and it will be done for you. Many take this verse out of context and do not consider it's full meaning or even take into consideration that it's not all about them, but all about Jesus. You see, when all of who we are abides in Christ, what we want no longer matters. We are no more concerned about the other, and building the Kingdom. I do not mean that God will not give us what we need. That's the difference. We will depend on Him more for what our real needs are rather than the nice new "under the sun" things the World convinces us that we need.
Abiding in Christ is above the sun living. It empowers us to live for something more than ourselves and trying to do life on our own. In Christ Alone.
God bless you as you seek Him.
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