21. Unless You Abide—

John 15:4 (NRSV) — 4 Abide in me as I abide in you. 

Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself 

unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me.

AM poses this question … Must this abiding be taken literally? Must I, as exclusively, and manifestly, and unceasingly, and absolutely, as the branch abides in the vine, be equally given up to find my whole life in Christ alone?

He answers … Indeed I must.

If I am to be a true branch, if I am to bear fruit, if I am to be what Christ as True Vine wants me to be, my whole existence must be as exclusively devoted to abiding IN Him, as that of the natural branch is to abiding in its vine.

There is a lesson to be learned here … Abiding is to be an act of the will and the whole heart. Just as there are degrees in seeking and serving God, "not with a perfect heart," or "with the whole heart," so there may be degrees in abiding. In our regeneration the Divine Life enters us, but does not all at once master and fill our whole being. This comes as matter of command and obedience.

There is unspeakable danger of our not giving ourselves with our whole heart to abide. There is unspeakable danger of our giving ourselves to work for God, and to bear fruit, with but little true abiding. And what is true abiding? It is the wholehearted losing of ourselves IN Christ and IN His life.

There is unspeakable danger of much work with but little fruit, for lack of this one needful thing. We must allow the words not of itself and except it abide, to do their work of searching and exposing, of pruning and cleansing, all that there is of self-will and self-confidence in our life. This is what will deliver us from this great evil, and so prepare us for His further Teaching, giving the full meaning of the word in us—

"Abide in Me, and I in you."