Abiding in Christ

“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.”               John 15:7

A dying man’s last words always come from his heart! They are sometimes harsh, sometimes sentimental and sometimes provocative. But you never forget them. What Jesus shared with the twelve as they sat together in the Upper Room for the Feast of the Passover represented His last words. “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you” (John 15:7).

What does it mean to remain or abide in Christ? To abide means to live or dwell, to stay somewhere, to remain where you are. It was used of goods that remained in the hold of a ship, of someone who stayed on the same road until he reached his destination, of stones that were part of a wall that is still standing.

Judas didn’t remain in Christ. He betrayed his Lord. Demas, one of Paul’s companions, turned his back and walked away from the faith – “because he loved the world,” explained Paul (2 Timothy 9:10). “False teachers” was Peter’s accusation, “denying the sovereign Lord who bought them.” Of them Peter said, “It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteoussness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them” (2 Peter 2:21).

What does it mean in the context of life today? You remain in Christ when you embrace the teaching of Jesus, and avoid cults and any religion that denies what Jesus did. You remain in Christ when you willfully do what is right. You remain in Christ when you do not stand aloof from issues of right and wrong.

Remaining in Christ and abiding in grace and truth is the key to an abundant spiritual life.

See, a king will reign in righteousness, and rulers will rule with justice. Each man will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen. The mind of the rash will know and understand, and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear. Isaiah 32:1-4