“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” (John 15:4)
You are going to abide somewhere, to put it rather foolishly yet with truth, where you are is where you are at. Your house, your vehicle, place of employment, even when you go to the marketplace, you are where you are at, you are, at least temporarily, abiding in that place.
Two verses for your consideration that are in context with the opening one of this short letter to you today.
“For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:3)
“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:3)
We who have been born-again are defying the known laws of physics, for we are in two places at once, here in the flesh, held firmly on this planet, yet not a part of it any longer, for we are at the same time hid in the Lord Jesus Christ who sits at the right hand of the Father.
I have often pondered that word “if,” and many of the places it appears in the Scriptures, for we are eternally safe in His hands, we are today the righteousness of God in Christ, yet that word offers an opportunity to be viewed as temporary and not continual.
More than likely, you have a place you call home here, the place you live, your house, but you probably leave it at times, to abide somewhere else temporarily, your place of employment, errands, visits to others homes, and you do this by your own free will. But, if you are abiding in Christ everywhere you go, you remain in Him, or at least we should.
Does He consume your thoughts, does the Word of God flow daily in your mind, do you view His wonders no matter where you are? If you ask, if you pray to the Father through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit and do not immediately receive that which you have asked for, or if that prayer is not answered after the fashion you hoped for, do you continue to abide in Him? If the circumstances look dire, if the physical pain becomes too much to bear, if the grief and sorrow begins to overwhelm you, do you abide in Him?
“And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” (John 14:13)
Those who have been crucified with Christ, those who are abiding in Him, those who realize that we are in two places at once, here and hid in Him, understand full well that every request we make to our Father in heaven is heard only because we abide in His Son, and every one of those prayers ends with, “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” (Luke 22:42)
There is a part of us that is being transformed by the renewing of our minds that is always abiding in Christ, but because we are here, on this planet in this life facing the daily, sometimes moment by moment needs of this world, the trials and tribulations, the grief, sorrow and inconveniences placed before us, we can find this part of us moving off the path set before us, our focus becomes the temporal, and that word I ponder often, “If” we do not remember who it is we are abiding in, who we are hid in eternally, we may find those temporal places a safer place of refuge.
“Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:” (Phil. 1:6)
That work can be hindered if you stop abiding, if you forget that the you that is here is also there, in heaven, at the right hand of the Majesty on high, hid in Christ.
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)
If you have been born-again, you are abiding in Him, when the temporal attempts to draw you away, remember that truth.
