Abide
In Christ by Andrew Murray
Day
13
Every
Moment
“In
that day sing to her, ‘A vineyard of red wine! I, the Lord, keep
it. I water it every moment; Lest any hurt it, I keep it night and
day.(Isaiah 27:2,3)
THE
vineyard was the symbol of the people of Israel, in whose midst the
True Vine was to stand. The branch is the symbol of the individual
believer, who stands in the Vine. The song of the vineyard is also
the song of the Vine and its every branch. The command still goes
forth to the watchers of the vineyard,—if only they had they obeyed
it, and sang until every feeble-hearted believer had learned and
joined the joyful strain—“...sing
to her...I, the Lord, keep it. I water it every moment. Lest any hurt
it, I keep it night and day.”
What
an answer from the mouth of God Himself to the question which is so
often asked: Is it possible for the believer always to abide in
Jesus? Is a life of unbroken fellowship with the Son of God indeed
attainable here in this earthly life? Truly not, if the abiding is
our work, to be done in our strength. But the things that are
impossible with men are possible with God. If the Lord Himself will
keep the soul night and day...yes, will watch and water it every
moment, then surely the uninterrupted communion with Jesus becomes a
blessed possibility to those who can trust God to mean and to do what
He says. Then, surely the abiding of the branch of the vine day and
night, summer and winter, in a never ceasing life-fellowship, is
nothing less than the simple but certain promise of your abiding in
your Lord.
In
one sense, it is true, there is no believer who does not always abide
in Jesus. Without this there could not be true life. "If anyone
does not abide in me, he is cast out…” (John 15:6). But when the
Savior gives the command, "Abide in me," with the promise,
"He who abides in me brings forth much fruit” (John 15:5), He
speaks of that willing, intelligent, and whole-hearted surrender by
which we accept His offer and consent to the abiding in Him as the
only life we choose or seek.
There
are chiefly two objections raised against our right to expect that we
shall always be able to voluntarily and consciously abide in Jesus.
The first one is derived from the nature of man. It is said that our
limited powers prevent our being occupied with two things at the same
moment. God's providence places many Christians in business, where
for hours at a time the closest attention is required to the work
they have to do. How can such a person, it is asked, with his whole
mind in the work he has to do, be at the same time occupied with
Christ, and keep up fellowship with Him? The consciousness of abiding
in Jesus is regarded as requiring such a strain, and such a direct
occupation of the mind with heavenly thoughts, that to enjoy the
blessing would imply a withdrawal of oneself from all the ordinary
business of life. This is the same error which drove the first monks
into the wilderness.
Blessed
be God, there is no necessity for such going out of the world.
Abiding in Jesus is not a work that needs the mind to be engaged each
moment, or the feelings to be directly and actively occupied with it.
It is an entrusting of oneself to the keeping of the Eternal Love, in
the faith that it will abide near us, and with its holy presence
watch over us and ward off the evil, even when we have to be most
intensely occupied with other things. And so the heart has rest and
peace and joy in the consciousness of being kept when it cannot keep
itself.
In
ordinary life, we have abundant illustration of the influence of a
supreme affection reigning in and guarding the soul, while the mind
has to concentrate itself on work that requires its whole attention.
Think of the father of a family, separated for a time from his home,
so that he may secure for his loved ones what they need. He loves his
wife and children, and longs greatly to return to them. There may be
hours of intense occupation when he has not a moment to think of
them, and yet his love is as deep and real as when he can call up
their images. All the time, his love and the hope of making them
happy urge him on, and fill him with a secret joy in his work. Think
also of a king. In the midst of work, pleasure, and trial, he all the
time acts under the secret influence of the consciousness of royalty,
even while he is not thinking of it. A loving wife and mother never
for one moment loses the sense of her relation to her husband and
children. The consciousness and the love are there, amid all her
busyness. And can it be thought impossible for the Everlasting Love
to so take and keep possession of our spirits, that we too will never
for a moment lose the secret consciousness: We are in Christ, kept in
Him by His almighty power!
Oh,
it is possible... we can be sure it is. Our abiding in Jesus is even
more than a fellowship of love—it is a fellowship of life. In work
or at rest, the consciousness of life never leaves us. And even so
can the mighty power of the Eternal Life maintain within us the
consciousness of its presence. Or rather, Christ, who is our life,
Himself dwells within us, and by His presence maintains our
consciousness that we are in Him.
The
second objection has reference to our sinfulness. Christians are so
accustomed to look upon sinning daily as something absolutely
inevitable, that they regard it as a matter of course that no one can
keep up abiding fellowship with the Savior. We must sometimes be
unfaithful and fail. As if it were not just because we have a nature
which is nothing but a very fountain of sin, that the abiding in
Christ has been ordained for us as our only and our sufficient
deliverance! As if it were not that the Heavenly Vine, the living,
loving Christ, in whom we have to abide, and whose almighty power to
hold us fast is to be the measure of our expectations! As if He would
give us the command, "Abide in me," without providing the
grace and the power to enable us to perform it! As if, above all, we
did not have the Father as the Gardener to keep us from falling, and
that not in a general sense only, but also according to His own
precious promise: "Night and day, every moment!" Oh, if we
will only look to our God as the Keeper of Israel, of whom it is
said, "The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; He shall
preserve your soul” (Psalm 121:7), we will learn to believe that
conscious abiding in Christ every moment, night and day, is indeed
what God has prepared for those who love Him.
My
beloved fellow Christians, let nothing less than this be your aim. I
know well that you may not find it easy to attain, that there may
come more than one hour of weary struggle and bitter failure. Were
the Church of Christ what it should be—were older believers to
younger converts what they should be, witnesses to God's
faithfulness, like Caleb and Joshua, encouraging their brethren to go
up and possess the land by saying, "We are well able to overcome
it...if the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this
land…” (Numbers 13:30, 14:8); were the atmosphere which the young
believer breathes as he enters the fellowship of the saints be that
of a healthy, trustful, joyful consecration, then abiding in Christ
would come as the natural outgrowth of being in Him. But in the
sickly state in which such a great part of the body is, souls that
are pressing after this blessing are greatly hindered by the
depressing influence of the thoughts and the lives around them. It is
not to discourage that I say this, but to warn, and to urge to cast
ourselves more entirely upon the Word of God Himself. There may come
more than one hour in which you are ready to yield to despair; but be
of good courage. Only believe. He who has put the blessing within
your reach will surely lead you to possess it.
The
way in which souls enter into the possession may differ. To some it
may come as the gift of a moment. In times of revival, in the
fellowship with other believers in whom the Spirit is working
effectively, under the leading of some servant of God who can guide,
and sometimes in solitude too, it is as if a new revelation comes
upon the soul all at once. It sees, as in the light of heaven, the
strong Vine holding and bearing the feeble branches so securely, that
doubt becomes impossible. It can only wonder how it ever could have
understood the words to mean anything else than this: To abide
unceasingly in Christ is the portion of every believer. The soul sees
this; and to believe and rejoice and love come as a result.
To
others it comes by a slower and more difficult path. Day by day, amid
discouragement and difficulty, the soul has to press forward. Be of
good cheer; this way too leads to the rest. Only seek to keep your
heart set upon the promise: "I The Lord do keep It, night and
day." Take from His own lips the watchword: "every moment."
In this word you have the law of His love, and the law of your hope.
Be content with nothing less. Do not think any longer that the duties
and the cares, that the sorrows and the sins, of this life must
succeed in hindering the abiding life of fellowship. Instead take the
language of faith for the rule of your daily experience: I am
persuaded that neither death with its fears, nor life with its cares,
nor things present with their pressing claims, nor things to come
with their dark shadows, nor height of joy, nor depth of sorrow, nor
any other creature, will be able, for one single moment, to separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, and in
which He is teaching me to abide. (See Romans 8:38, 39). If things
look dark and faith seems to fail, sing again the song of the
vineyard: "I,
the Lord, keep it. I water it every moment. Lest any hurt it, I keep
it night and day.”
And be assured that, if Jehovah keeps the branch night and day, and
waters it every moment, a life of continuous and unbroken fellowship
with Christ is indeed our privilege.
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