|
| |
      
Abide In Christ
Col. 2:6-7
In these words the apostle teaches us the weighty
lesson that it is not only by faith that we first come to Christ and are united
to Him, but that it is by faith that we are to be rooted and established in our
union with Christ. No less essential
than it is for the commencement is faith for the progress of the spiritual life.
Abiding in Jesus can only be by faith.
There are earnest Christians who do not understand this; or, if they admit
it in theory, the fail to realize its application in practice.
They are very zealous for a free gospel with our first acceptance of
Christ, and justification by faith alone. But
after this, they think everything depends on our diligence and faithfulness.
While they firmly grasp the truth “The sinner shall be justified by
faith,” they have hardly found a place in their scheme for the larger truth
“The just shall live by faith.” They
have never understood what a perfect Savior Jesus is, and how He will each
day do for the sinner just as much as He did the first day when he or she
came to Him. They do not know that
the life of grace is always and only a life of faith and that in the
relationship to Jesus the one daily and unceasing duty of the disciple is to believe,
because believing is the one channel through which divine grace and strength
flow out into the heart of man. The
old nature of the believer remains evil and sinful to the last; it is only as he
daily comes, all empty and helpless, to his Savior to receive of His life and
strength that he can bring forth the fruits of righteousness to the glory of
God. Therefore, it is “As
ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him; rooted
and built up in Him, and established in the faith, abounding therein.”
As you came to Jesus, so abide in Him, by faith.
And if you would know how faith is to be exercised in thus abiding in
Jesus, to be rooted more deeply and firmly in Him, you have only to look back to
the time when first you received Him. You
remember well what obstacles at that time there appeared to be in the way of
your believing. There was first your
vileness and guilt: it appeared
impossible that the promise of pardon and love could be for such a sinner.
Then there was the sense of weakness and death:
you felt not the power for the surrender and the trust to which you were
called. And then there was the
future: you dared not undertake to
be a disciple of Jesus while you felt so sure that you could not remain
standing, but would speedily again be unfaithful and fall.
These difficulties were like mountains in your way.
And how were they removed? Simply
by the promise of God. That word, as
it were, compelled you to believe that, notwithstanding guilt in the past and
weakness in the present and unfaithfulness in the future, the promise was sure
that Jesus would accept and save you. On
that word, you ventured to come, and were not deceived: you found that Jesus did
indeed accept and save.
Apply
this, your experience in coming to Jesus, to the abiding in Him.
Now as then, the temptations to keep you from believing are many.
When you think of your sins since you became a disciple, your heart is
cast down with shame and it looks as if it were too much to expect that Jesus
should indeed receive you into perfect intimacy and the full enjoyment of His
holy love. When you think how
utterly, in times past, you have failed in keeping the most sacred vows, the
consciousness of present weakness makes you tremble at the very idea of
answering the Savior’s command with the promise, “Lord, from henceforth I
will abide in Thee.” And when you
set before yourself the life of love and joy, of holiness and fruitfulness,
which in the future are to flow from abiding in Him, it is as if it only serves
to make you still more hopeless; you, at least, can never attain to it.
You know yourself too well. It
is no use expecting it, only to be disappointed; a life fully and wholly abiding
in Jesus is not for you.
Oh
that you would learn a lesson from the time of your first coming to the Savior!
Remember, dear soul, how you then were led, contrary to all that your
experience and your feelings and even your sober judgment said, to take Jesus at
His word, and how you were not disappointed.
He did receive you and pardon you; He did love you and save you – you
know it. And if He did this for you
when you were an enemy and a stranger, why do you think, now that you are His
own, He will not much more fulfill His promise?
Oh that you would come and begin simply to listen to His word, and to ask
only the one question: Does He really mean that I should abide in Him?
The answer His word gives so simple and so sure:
By His almighty grace you are in Him, and that same almighty grace will
indeed enable you to abide in Him. By
faith you become partakers of the initial grace; by that same faith you can
enjoy the continuous grace of abiding in Him.
And if you ask what exactly it is that you now have to believe that you may
abide in Him, the answer is not difficult. Believe,
first of all what He says: “I am
the Vine.” The safety and the
fruitfulness of the branches depend upon the strength of the vine.
Think not so much of yourself as a branch, nor of abiding as your duty,
until you have first had your soul filled with the faith of what Christ as the
Vine is. He really will be to you
all that a vine can be – holding you fast, nourishing you, and making Himself
every moment responsible for your growth and your fruit.
Take time to know, set yourself heartily to believe:
My Vine, on whom I can depend for all I need, is Christ.
A large, strong vine bears the feeble branch, and holds it more than the
branch holds the vine. Ask the
Father by the holy Spirit to reveal to you what a glorious, loving, mighty
Christ this is, in whom you have your place and your life; it is the faith in
what Christ is, more than anything else, that will keep you abiding in Him.
A soul filled with large thoughts of the Vine will be a strong branch,
and will abide confidently in Him. Be
much occupied with Jesus, and believe much in Him as the True Vine.
And then, when Faith can well say, “He is my Vine,” let it further
say, “I am His branch, I am in Him.”
I speak to those who say they are Christ’s disciples, and on them I
cannot too earnestly press the importance of exercising their faith by saying,
“I am in Him” – it makes the abiding so simple.
If, as I meditate, I realize clearly Now I am in Him, I see at
once that there is nothing wanting but just my consent to be what
He has made me – to remain where He has placed me.
I am in Christ: this simple
thought, carefully, prayerfully, believingly uttered, removes all difficulty as
if there were some great attainment to be reached.
No, I am in Christ, my blessed Savior.
His love has prepared a home for me with Himself, when He says, “Abide
in my love” and His power has undertaken to watch the door and to keep me in,
if I will but consent. I am in
Christ: I have now but to say,
“Savior, I bless Thee for this wondrous grace.
I consent; I yield myself to Thy gracious keeping; I do abide in Thee.”
It is
astonishing how such a faith will work out all that is further implied in
abiding in Christ. There is in the
Christian life great need of watchfulness and of prayer, of self-denial and of
striving, of obedience and of diligence. But
“all things are possible to him that believeth.”
“This is the victory that overcometh – even our faith.”
It is the faith that continually closes its eyes to the weakness of the
creature and finds its joy in the sufficiency of an Almighty Savior that makes
the soul strong and glad. It gives
itself up to be led by the Holy Spirit into an ever-deeper appreciation of what
wonderful Savior whom God has given us – the Infinite Emmanuel.
It follows the leading of the Spirit from page to page of the blessed
Word, with the one desire to take each revelation of what Jesus is and what He
promises as its nourishment and its life. In
accordance with the promise “If that which ye have heard from the beginning
abide in you, ye also shall abide in the Son and in the Father,” it lives by
every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
And so it makes the soul strong with the strength of God, to be and do
all that is needed for abiding in Christ.
Believer,
do you desire to abide in Christ? Only
believe. Believe always; believe
now. Bow even now before your
Lord, and say to Him in childlike faith that because He is your Vine and
you are His branch, you will this day abide in Him.
-
Now
to Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand in
the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our
Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and
authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jude
1:24-25
Webservant
for TwoListeners.org
a
non-profit project for the edification of Christians worldwide
We offer
thanksgiving in our prayers for Esther, for her ministry
in producing this work for the benefit of all who come to this website.
|