35. If you Abide—

John 15:7 (NRSV) If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, 

ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

The reason the Vine and its branches are such a true parable of the Christian life is that all nature has one source and breathes one spirit. The plant world was created to be to man an object lesson teaching him his entire dependence upon God, and his security in that dependence. He that clothes the lilies will much more clothe us. He that gives the trees and the vines their beauty and their fruits, making each what He meant it to be, will much more certainly make us what He would have us to be. The only difference is what God works in the trees is by a Power of which they are not conscious. He wants to work in us with our consent. This is the nobility of man, that he has a will to co-operate with God in understanding and approving and accepting what He offers to do.

If you abide—

Here is the difference between the branch of the natural and the branch of the spiritual Vine—the former abides by force of nature: the latter abides by a Divine Power given to the consent of the will. Such is the wonderful provision God has made that, what the power of nature does in the one case, the Power of Grace will do in the other. The branch can abide in the Vine.

If you abide in Me ... ask whatsoever you will—

If we are to live a true prayer life marked by the love, power and the experience of prayer there need be no question about the abiding. And if we abide, there need be no question about the liberty of asking what we will, and the certainty of it being done. There is the one condition: "If you abide in Me." There must be no hesitation about the possibility or the certainty of it—we must gaze on that little branch and its wonderful power of bearing such beautiful fruit until we truly learn to abide.