learning DAILY



John 15: 4, “Abide in Me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.”

In order to get the full meaning of what it means to “abide in Me and I in you” read the entire passage (John 15: 1-17).  In the last page of this blog, Paul said that we are “more than conquerors through Him who loves us”.  The only thing that could cause us to fail in our spiritual walk is our own failure to remain in Him – the vine that John is talking about in this passage. 

When a person believes in Jesus Christ for salvation, he receives eternal life and the power to remain in Christ.  That person must accept the responsibility to remain in Christ; just as a branch has life as long as the life of the vine flows into it.  As long as the Believer stays connected to (abides in) Christ he has Christ’s life flowing through him.  The true vine, Jesus Christ, is the source of all life; this is a fundamental truth of being a Christian! 

The question becomes how does one remain in Him?  Keep God’s Word continually in your heart and mind making it a guide for your actions and speech (verse 7).  Verse 7 also reminds us to spend time in prayer in order to draw strength from Him.  Another way of abiding in Him is to obey His commandments (verse 10).  I know that there are no murderers reading this in the sense of physically taking another’s life; but, what about the things we say about another person?  Verses 12 and 17 speaks of loving each other – what a perfect way to abide in Christ.  There are plenty of verses in the Bible that tell us to keep our lives clean through resisting all sin and yielding to the Holy Spirit’s direction.  There are times we just have to say “no” to temptation when it comes.  Yes, we will sin. But when we do admit it and ask for forgiveness; just do not think this gives license to sin.

Let me close with several verses from this passage.  Jesus said, “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what a master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”

We will talk about bearing fruit tomorrow.

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