Abide In Christ - Day 10 - As Your Redemption (Video Devotional)

ABIDE IN CHRIST by Andrew Murray

Day 10

As Your Redemption

“But of (God) you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and Righteousness and sanctification and REDEMPTION—” 1 Corinthians 1:30

Here we have the top of the ladder, reaching into heaven—the blessed end to which Christ and life in Him is to lead. The word redemption, though sometimes applied to our deliverance from the guilt of sin, here refers to our complete and final deliverance from all of its consequences. This will be when the Redeemer's work will become fully manifest, even to the redemption of the body itself (comp. Rom. 8:21-23; Eph. 1:14, 5: 30). The expression points us to the highest glory to be hoped for in the future, and therefore also to the highest blessing to be enjoyed in the present in Christ. We have seen how, as a prophet, Christ is our wisdom, revealing to us God and His love, with the nature and conditions of the salvation that love has prepared. As a priest, He is our righteousness, restoring us to right relations to God, and securing for us His favor and friendship. As a king, He is our sanctification, forming and guiding us into the obedience to the Father's holy will. As these three offices work out God's one purpose. The grand consummation will be reached, the complete deliverance from sin and all its effects will be accomplished, and ransomed humanity will regain all that it had ever lost.

Christ is made of God unto us redemption. The word invites us to look upon Jesus, not only as He lived on earth, teaching us by word and example; as He died, to reconcile us with God; as He lives again, a victorious King, rising to receive His crown; but also as, sitting at the right hand of God, He takes again the glory which He had with the Father, before the world began, and holds it there for us. It consists in this, that there His human nature, yes, even His human body, freed from all the consequences of sin to which He once had been exposed, is now shares the Divine glory with the Father. As Son of man, He dwells on the throne and in the bosom of the Father. The deliverance from what He had to suffer from sin is complete and eternal. The complete redemption is found embodied in His own person. What He as man is and has in heaven is the complete redemption. He is made of God to us redemption.

We are in Him as such. And the more intelligently and believingly we abide in Him as our redemption, the more we will experience, even here in this life, "the powers of the world to come." As our communion with Him becomes more intimate and intense, and we let the Holy Spirit reveal Jesus to us in His heavenly glory, the more we realize how the life in us is the life of One who sits upon the throne of heaven. We feel the power of an endless life working in us. We taste the eternal life. We have the foretaste of the eternal glory.

The blessings flowing from abiding in Christ as our redemption are great. The soul is delivered from all fear of death. There was a time when even the Savior feared death. But now no longer. He has triumphed over death. Even His body has entered into the glory. The believer who abides in Christ as his full redemption, realizes even now his spiritual victory over death. It becomes to him the servant that removes the last rags of the old carnal clothing before he is clothed upon with the new body of glory. It carries the body to the grave, to lie there as the seed from which the new body will arise as the worthy companion of the glorified spirit. The resurrection of the body is no longer a barren doctrine, but a living expectation, and even an introductory experience, because the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in the body as the pledge that even our mortal bodies shall be quickened (Rom. 8:11-23). This faith exercises its sanctifying influence in the willing surrender of the sinful members of the body to be subdued and completely subjected to the dominion of the Spirit. This is as preparation for the time when the frail body shall be changed and fashioned like to His glorious body.

This full redemption of Christ, extending to the body, has a depth of meaning not easily expressed. It was said of man as a whole, soul and body, that he was made in the image and likeness of God. In the angels, God had created spirits without material bodies. In the creation of the world, there was matter without spirit. Man was to be the highest specimen of Divine art. The combination in one being, of matter and spirit in perfect harmony, as an example of the most perfect union between God and His own creation. Sin entered in and appeared to thwart the Divine plan. The material obtained a fearful supremacy over the spiritual.

The Word was made flesh, the Divine fullness received an embodiment in the humanity of Christ, that the redemption might be a complete and perfect one. This was done so that the whole creation, which now groans and travails in pain together, might be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. God's purpose will not be accomplished, and Christ's glory will not be manifested fully, until the body, with that whole of nature of which it is part and head, has been transfigured by the power of the spiritual life, and made the transparent clothing for showing forth the glory of the Infinite Spirit. Only then shall we understand: "Christ Jesus is made unto us (complete) redemption."

In the meantime we are taught to believe that “of God are you in Christ...as your redemption.” This is not meant as a revelation, to be left to the future. For the full development of the Christian life, our present abiding in Christ must seek to enter into and appropriate it. We do this as we learn to triumph over death now. We do it as we learn to look upon Christ as the Lord of our body, claiming its entire consecration, securing even here in this life, if faith will claim it (Mark 16:17, 18), victory over the terrible dominion sin has had in the body. We do this as we learn to look on all nature as part of the kingdom of Christ, destined, even though it be through a baptism of fire, to partake in His redemption. We do it as we allow the powers of the coming world to possess us, and to lift us up into a life in the heavenly places, to enlarge our hearts and our views, to anticipate, even here in this life, the things which have never entered into the heart of man to conceive.

Believer, abide in Christ as your redemption. Let this be the crown of your Christian life. Do not seek it first or only, apart from the knowledge of Christ in His other relations. But seek it truly as that to which they are meant to lead you up. Abide in Christ as your redemption. Nothing will fit you for this but faithfulness to the previous steps of the Christian life. Abide in Him as your wisdom, the perfect revelation of all that God is and has for you. Follow, in the daily ordering of the inner and the outer life, with meek submissiveness His teaching. In doing this, you will be counted worthy to have secrets revealed to you which to most disciples are a sealed book. The wisdom will lead you into the mysteries of complete redemption. Abide in Him as your righteousness. Dwell clothed upon with Him in that inner sanctuary of the Father's favor and presence to which His righteousness gives you access.

As you rejoice in your reconciliation, you will understand how it includes all things, and how they too wait the full redemption. “For it pleased the Father... by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things on earth or things in heaven" (Col. 1:19-20). And abide in Him as your sanctification. The experience of His power to make you holy, spirit, soul and body, will quicken your faith in a holiness that will not cease its work until the bells of the horses and every pot in Jerusalem will be Holiness to the Lord. Abide in Him as your redemption, and live, even here, as the heir of the future glory. And as you seek to experience in yourself the full power of His saving grace, your heart will be enlarged to realize the position man has been destined to occupy in the universe, as having all things made subject to him. You will for your part be made fit to live worthy of that high and heavenly calling.

Abide In Christ - Day 9 - As Our Sanctification (Video Devotional)

ABIDE IN CHRIST by Andrew Murray

Day 9

As Your Sanctification

“But of (God) you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and Righteousness and SANCTIFICATION and redemption—” 1 Corinthians 1:30

(Before we began this chapter, I would like to point out something that Andrew Murray probably assumed all readers in his day understood, but is not so well understood today. That is, that sanctification is the process of making men and women holy. That is why this chapter on sanctification is also about holiness.)

“Paul...to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints..."-—so the chapter opens in which we are taught that Christ is our sanctification. In the Old Testament, believers were called the righteous; in the New Testament they are called saints, the holy ones, sanctified in Christ Jesus. Holiness* is higher than righteousness. Holiness in God has reference to His inmost being; righteousness, to His dealings with His creatures. In man, righteousness is only a stepping stone to holiness. It is in this he can come nearest to the perfection of God (comp. Matt. 5:48; 1 Pet. 1:16). In the Old Testament righteousness was found, while holiness was only typified. In Jesus Christ, the Holy One, and in His people, His saints or holy ones, it was first found.

As in Scripture and in our text, so in personal experience righteousness precedes holiness. When the believer first finds Christ as his righteousness, he has such joy in the newly made discovery that the study of holiness hardly has a place. But as he grows, the desire for holiness makes itself felt, and he seeks to know what provision his God has made for supplying that need. A superficial acquaintance with God's plan leads to the view that while justification is God's work, by faith in Christ, sanctification is our work, to be performed under the influence of the gratitude we feel for the deliverance we have experienced, and by the aid of the Holy Spirit. But the earnest Christian soon finds that gratitude is not capable to supply the power. When he thinks that more prayer will bring it, he finds that, indispensable as prayer is, it is not enough. Often the believer struggles hopelessly for years, until he listens to the teaching of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit reveals to him that Christ as our sanctification can be appropriated by faith alone.

Christ is made of God unto us sanctification. Holiness is the very nature of God, and only that which God takes possession of and fills with Himself is holy. God's answer to the question, “How could sinful man become holy?” is, "through Christ, the Holy One of God." In Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, was God's holiness revealed incarnate and brought within reach of man. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth" (John 17:19). There is no other way that we can become holy, but by becoming partakers of the holiness of Christ.* And there is no other way for this to take place than by our personal spiritual union with Him, so that through His Holy Spirit His holy life flows into us. “Of (God) are you in Christ, who is made unto us...sanctification.” Abiding by faith in Christ our sanctification is the simple secret of a holy life. The measure of sanctification will depend on the measure of abiding in Him. As the soul learns wholly to abide in Christ, the promise is increasingly fulfilled: "The very God of peace sanctify you wholly.” (1 Thess. 5:23).

To illustrate this relationship between the measure of the abiding and the measure of sanctification the believer experiences, let us think of the grafting of a tree, which is an instructive symbol of our union to Jesus. The illustration is suggested by the Savior's words, "Make the tree good, and his fruit good” (Matt. 12:33). I can graft a tree so that only a single branch bears good fruit, while many of the natural branches remain and bear their old fruit. This is an illustration of believers in whom a small part of the life is sanctified, but in whom, from ignorance or other reasons, the carnal life still in many respects has full dominion. I can graft a tree so that every branch is cut off, and the whole tree becomes renewed to bear good fruit. Yet, unless I watch over the tendency of the stems to produce sprouts, they may again rise and grow strong, and, robbing the new graft of the strength it needs, make it weak. Such are Christians who, when apparently powerfully converted, forsake all to follow Christ, and yet after a time, through not being watchful and careful, may allow old habits to regain their power. As a result, their Christian lives and their fruit are weak. But if I want a tree made completely good, I take it when young, and, cutting the stem clean off at the ground, I graft it just where it emerges from the soil. I watch over every bud which the old nature could possibly put forth, until the flow of sap from the old roots into the new stem is so complete, that the old life has, as it were, been entirely conquered and covered by the new. Here I have a tree entirely renewed. This is an emblem of the Christian who has learned in entire consecration to surrender everything for Christ, and in a whole-hearted faith, to wholly abide in Him. (* See note from Marshall On Sanctification.)

If, in this case, the old tree were a reasoning being, that could cooperate with the gardener, what would the gardener speak to it? Would it not be this: "Yield now yourself entirely to this new nature with which I have given to you. Supress every tendency of the old nature to give buds or sprouts. Let all your sap and all your life-powers rise up into this graft from a beautiful tree, which I have put on you. So will you bring forth much sweet fruit." And the language of the tree to the gardener would be: "When You graft me, do not spare a single branch! Let everything of the old self, even the smallest bud, be destroyed, so that I may no longer live in my own self, but in that other life which was cut off and brought and put upon me, so that I might be wholly new and good." And, later, were you able to ask the renewed tree, as it was bearing abundant fruit, what it could say about itself, its answer would be this: "In me, that is, in my roots, there dwells no good thing. I am ever inclined to evil. The sap I collect from the soil is in its nature corrupt, and ready to show itself in bearing evil fruit. But just when the sap rises into the sunshine to ripen into fruit, the wise gardener has clothed me with a new life. Through this my sap is purified, and all my powers are renewed to bring forth good fruit. I have only to abide in what I have received. He cares for the immediate suppression and removal of every bud which the old nature still would put forth."

Christian, do not fear to claim God's promises to make you holy. Do not listen to the suggestion that the corruption of your old nature would make holiness an impossibility. In your flesh dwells no good thing, and that flesh, though crucified with Christ, is not yet dead. It will continually seek to rise and lead you to evil. But the Father is the Gardener. He has grafted the life of Christ onto your life. That holy life is mightier than your evil life. Under the watchful care of the Gardener, that new life can keep down the workings of the evil life within you. The evil nature is there, with its unchanged tendency to rise up and show itself. But the new nature is there too— because the living Christ, your sanctification, is there—and through Him all your powers can be sanctified as they rise into life and be made to bear fruit to the glory of the Father.

And now, if you would desire to live a holy life, abide in Christ your sanctification. Look upon Him as the Holy One of God who was made man that He might communicate to us the holiness of God. Listen when Scripture teaches that there is within you a new nature, a new man, created in Christ Jesus, in righteousness and true holiness. Remember that this holy nature which is in you is especially fitted for living a holy life, and for performing all holy duties. This is true of the new nature as much as the old nature is fitted for doing evil. Understand that this holy nature within you has its root and life in Christ in heaven, and can only grow and become strong as the dealings between it and its source are uninterrupted. And, above all, believe most confidently that Jesus Christ Himself delights in maintaining that new nature within you, and imparting to it His own strength and wisdom for its work.

Let that faith lead you daily to the surrender of all self-confidence, and the confession of the utter corruption of all there is in you by nature. Let it fill you with a quiet and assured confidence that you are indeed able to do what the Father expects of you as His child, under the covenant of His grace, because you have Christ strengthening you. Let it teach you to lay yourself and your services on the altar as spiritual sacrifices, holy and acceptable in His sight, a sweet smelling savor. Do not look upon a life of holiness as a strain and an effort, but as the natural outgrowth of the life of Christ within you. And let a quiet, hopeful, and joyful faith hold itself assured that all you need for a holy life will most certainly be given you out of the holiness of Jesus. Then you will you understand and prove what it is to abide in Christ our sanctification.

* " Holiness may be called spiritual perfection, as righteousness is legal completeness."—God's Way of Holiness, by H. Bonar, D.D., p. 148.

Note.

The thought that in the personal holiness of our Lord a new holy nature was formed to be communicated to us, and that we make use of it by faith, is the central idea of Marshall's invaluable work, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification:—

"One great mystery is, that the holy frame and disposition whereby our souls are furnished and enabled for immediate practice of the law, must be obtained by receiving it out of Christ's fullness, as a thing already prepared and brought to an existence for us in Christ, and treasured up tn Him; and that, as we are justified by a righteousness wrought out in Christ, and imputed to us, so we are sanctified by such an holy frame and qualification as are first wrought out and completed in Christ for us, and then imparted to us. As our natural corruption was produced originally in the first Adam and propagated from him to us, so our new nature and holiness is first produced in Christ, and derived from him to us, or, as it were, propagated. So that we are not at all to work together with Christ in making or producing that holy frame in us, but only to take it to ourselves, and use it in our holy practice, as made ready to our hands. Thus we have fellowship with Christ, in receiving that holy frame of spirit that was originally in Him; for fellowship is where several persons have the same things in common. This mystery is so great, that notwithstanding all the light of the Gospel, we commonly think that we must get an holy frame by producing it anew in ourselves, and by pursuing it and working it out of our own heart'' (see chap, iii.).*

* I have felt so strongly that the teaching of Marshall is just what the Church needs to bring out clearly what the Scripture path of holiness is, that I have prepared an abridgment (all in the author's own words) of his work By leaving out what was not essential to his argument, and shortening when he appeared diffuse, I hoped to briug his book within reach of many who might never read the larger work. It is published by Nisbet & Co. under the title, The Highway of Holiness. I cannot too earnestly urge every student of theology, and of Scripture, and of the art of holy living, to make himself master of the teaching of Marshall's third, fourth, and twelfth chapters.

Abide In Christ - Day 8 - As Your Righteousness (Video Devotional)

ABIDE IN CHRIST by Andrew Murray

Day 8

As Your Righteousness

“But of (God) you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and RIGHTEOUSNESS and sanctification and redemption—” 1 Corinthians 1:30

'The first of the great blessings which Christ our wisdom reveals to us as prepared in Himself is righteousness. It is not difficult to see why this must be first. There can be no real prosperity or progress in a nation, a home, or a soul, unless there is peace. Not even a machine can do its work unless it be at rest, secured on a good foundation. In the same way, quietness and assurance are indispensable to our moral and spiritual well-being. Sin had disturbed all of our relationships. We were out of harmony with ourselves, with men, and with God. The first requirement of a salvation that would really bring blessedness to us was peace. And peace can only come with right. Where everything is as God would have it, in God's order and in harmony with His will, there alone can peace reign. Jesus Christ came to restore peace on earth, and peace in the soul, by restoring righteousness. Because He is Melchizedek, King of Righteousness, He reigns as King of Salem, which means King of Peace (Heb. 7: 2). He so fulfills the promise the prophets held out: "A King will reign in righteousness…(and) the work of righteousness will be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever" (Isa. 32:1,17). Christ is made of God unto us righteousness. Through God we are in Him as our righteousness. We are made the righteousness of God in Him. Let us try to understand what this means.

When first the sinner is led to trust in Christ for salvation, he, as a rule, looks more to Jesus’ work than His person. As he looks at the Cross, and Christ suffering there, the Righteous One for the unrighteous, he sees in that atoning death the only sufficient foundation for his faith in God's pardoning mercy. The substitution, and the curse-bearing, and the atonement of Christ dying in the stead of sinners, are what give him peace. And as he understands how the righteousness which Christ brings becomes his very own, and how, in the strength of that, he is counted righteous before God, he feels that he has what he needs to restore him to God's favor. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God" (Romans 5:1). He seeks to wear this robe of righteousness in the ever renewed faith in the glorious gift of righteousness which has been bestowed upon him.

But as time goes on, and he seeks to grow in the Christian life, new needs arise. He wants to understand more fully how it is that God can justify the ungodly on the strength of the righteousness of another. He finds the answer in the wonderful teaching of Scripture as to the true union of the believer with Christ as the second Adam. He sees that it is because Christ had made Himself one with His people, and they were one with Him, that it was in perfect accordance with all law in the kingdom of nature and of heaven. Because of this, each member of the body should have the full benefit of the doing and the suffering sharing the life of the head. And so he is led to feel that it can only be in fully realizing his personal union with Christ as the head, that he can fully experience the power of His righteousness to bring the soul into the full favor and fellowship of the Holy One. The work of Christ does not become less precious, but the person of Christ becomes more so. The work of Christ leads up into the very heart, the love and the life of the God-man.

And this experience sheds its light again upon Scripture. It leads him to notice, what he had hardly seen before, how distinctly the righteousness of God, as it becomes ours, is connected with the person of the Redeemer. "This is His name by which He will be called, Jehovah Our Righteousness (Jer. 23:6) "in Jehovah have I righteousness and strength (Isa. 45:24) "Of God is He made unto us righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30). "That we might become the righteousness of God In Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). "That I may be found In Him, having the righteousness of God” (See Phil 3:9).

He sees how inseparable righteousness and life in Christ are from each other: "Through one man’s righteous act the free gift came upon all men, resulting in justification of life (Romans 5:18). "Those who receive the gift of righteousness... shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17). And he understands what deep meaning there is in the key word of the Epistle to the Romans: "The righteous shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17) He is not now content with only thinking of the imputed righteousness as his robe, but, as he puts on Jesus Christ, and seeks to be wrapped up in Him...to be clothed with Jesus and His life...he feels how completely the righteousness of God is his, because the Lord our righteousness is his. Before he understood this, he often felt it difficult to wear his white robe of righteousness all the day. It was as if he especially had to put it on when he came into God's presence to confess his sins and seek new grace. But now the living Christ Himself is his righteousness...this Christ who watches over, and keeps and loves us as His own. He sees it is now possible to walk all day long enrobed in the loving presence with which God covers His people.

Such an experience leads still further. The life and the righteousness are inseparably linked, and the believer becomes more conscious than before of a righteous nature planted within him. The new man created in Christ Jesus is "created in righteousness and true holiness (Eph. 4:24). "He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous” (1 John 3:7). The union to Jesus has produced a change in us not only in our relation to God, but in our personal state before God. And as we maintain the intimate fellowship which this union has opened up for us, the growing renewal of our whole being makes righteousness to be our very nature.

When we begin to see the deep meaning of the truth, "(He is) made unto us righteousness," it is hardly necessary to say, "Abide in Him." As long as we only thought of the righteousness of the Substitute, and our being counted judicially righteous for His sake, the absolute necessity of abiding in Him was not apparent to us. But as the glory of "The Lord our righteousness" (Jer. 23:6) unfolds to our view, we see that abiding in Him personally is the only way to stand, at all times, complete and accepted before God. It is the only way to realize how the new and righteous nature we receive can be strengthened from Jesus our Head. As penitent sinners, the chief thought we had was of the righteousness which comes through Jesus dying for our sin. As we become more advanced believers, Jesus, the Living One, through whom the righteousness comes, is everything, because when we have Him we have the righteousness too.

Believer, abide in Christ as your righteousness. You bear about with you a nature altogether corrupt and vile, ever seeking to rise up and darken your sense of acceptance and of access to unbroken fellowship with the Father. Nothing can enable you to dwell and walk in the light of God, without even the shadow of a cloud between, but the habitual abiding in Christ as your righteousness. To this you are called. Seek to walk worthy of that calling. Yield yourself to the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the wonderful grace that permits you to draw near to God, clothed in a Divine righteousness. Take time to realize that you have indeed put on the King's own robe, and that with that Robe of Righteousness you do not fear to enter into His presence. It is the token that you are the man (or woman) whom the King delights to honor. Take time to remember that as much as you need it in the palace, you need it even more when He sends you forth into the world, where you are the King's messenger and representative.

Live your daily life in the full consciousness of being righteous in God's sight, an object of delight and pleasure in Christ. Connect every view you have of Christ in His other graces with this first one: "Of God He is made unto you righteousness." This will keep you in perfect peace. As a result of this, you shall you enter into, and dwell in, the rest of God. So will your inmost being be transformed into being righteous and doing righteousness. In your heart and life it will become manifest where you dwell. As you abide in Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, you will share His position, His character, and His blessedness. "You love righteousness and hate wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions.” (Psalm 45:7) Joy and gladness above measure will be your portion.

Abide In Christ - Day 7 - As Your Wisdom (Video Devotional)

ABIDE IN CHRIST by Andrew Murray

Day 7

As Your Wisdom

“But of (God) you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us WISDOM from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—” (1 Corinthians 1:30)

JESUS CHRIST is not only our Priest to purchase us and our King to secure us, but also our Prophet to reveal to us the salvation which God has prepared for those who love Him. Just as at the creation the light was first called into existence, so that in it all God's other works might have their life and beauty, so in our text wisdom is mentioned first as the treasury in which the three precious gifts that follow are to be found. The life is the light of man; it is in revealing to us, and making us behold the glory of God in His own face that Christ makes us partakers of eternal life. It was by the tree of knowledge that sin came. It is through the knowledge that Christ gives that salvation comes. He is made by God unto us wisdom. In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

And of God you are in Him and only have to abide in Him to be made partaker of these treasures of wisdom. In Him you are, and in Him the wisdom is. Dwelling in Him, you dwell in the very fountain of all light. Abiding in Him, you have Christ the wisdom of God leading your whole spiritual life. He is ready to communicate, in the form of knowledge, just as much as is necessary for you to know. Christ is made for us wisdom. You are in Christ.

It is this connection between what Christ has been made to us by God, and how we have it only as also being IN Him, that we must learn to understand better. We will therefore see that the blessings prepared for us in Christ cannot be obtained as special gifts in answer to prayer apart from the abiding in Him. The answer to each prayer must come in the closer union and the deeper abiding in Him. All other gifts are treasured up in Him, the Unspeakable Gift, including the gift of wisdom and knowledge.

How often have you longed for wisdom and spiritual understanding that you might know God better! To know Him is life eternal! Abide in Jesus. Your life in Him will lead you to that fellowship with God in which the only true knowledge of God is to be had. His love, His power, His infinite glory will, as you abide in Jesus, be revealed as it has not entered into the heart of man to conceive. You may not be able to grasp it with the understanding, or to express it in words, but the knowledge which is deeper than thoughts or words will be given —the knowing of God which comes of being known OF HIM. "We preach Christ crucified...to those who are called...Christ (is) the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23, 24)

Would you gladly “count all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ (your) Lord” (Phil. 3:8)? Abide in Jesus, and be found in Him. You will know Him in the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. Following Him, you will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. It is only when God shines into the heart, and Christ Jesus dwells there, that the light of the knowledge of God in the face of Christ can be seen (See 2 Cor. 4:6).

Would you understand His blessed work as He worked it on earth, or now works it from heaven by His Spirit? Would you know how Christ can become our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption? It is just as bringing, and revealing, and communicating these that He became unto us wisdom from God. There are a thousand questions that at times come up, and the attempt to answer them becomes a weariness and a burden. This is only true because you have forgotten you are in Christ, whom God has made to be your wisdom. Let it be your first care to abide in Him in undivided fervent devotion of heart. When the heart and the life are right, rooted in Christ, knowledge will come in such measure as Christ's own wisdom sees fit. And without such abiding in Christ the knowledge does not really profit, but is often most harmful. The soul satisfies itself with thoughts which are only the forms and images of truth, without receiving the truth itself in its power. God's way is always first to give us the thing itself, even though it is only a seed. He then will give us the life and the power, and finally the knowledge itself. Man seeks the knowledge first, and often, alas, never gets beyond it! God gives us Christ, and in Him are hid the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Oh, let us be content to possess Christ, to dwell in Him, to make Him our life, and only in a deeper searching into Him, to search and find the knowledge we desire. Such knowledge is life indeed.

Therefore, believer, abide in Jesus as your wisdom, and expect from Him most confidently whatever teaching you may need for a life to the glory of the Father. In all that concerns your spiritual life, abide in Jesus as your wisdom. The life you have in Christ is a thing of infinite sacredness, far too high and holy for you to know how to act it out. It is He alone who can guide you, with a secret spiritual instinct, to know what is fitting for your dignity as a child of God. He will guide you also to know what will help and what will hinder your inner life, and especially to know how to abide in Him. Do not think of it as a mystery or a difficulty you must solve. Questions might come up as to the possibility of abiding perfectly and uninterruptedly in Him, and of really obtaining all the blessing that comes from it. Yet always remember this... He knows, all is perfectly clear to Him, and He is your wisdom. Just as much as you need to know and are capable of comprehending will be communicated, if you only trust Him. Never think of the riches of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Jesus as treasures without a key, or of your way as a path without a light. Jesus your wisdom is guiding you in the right way, even when you do not see it.

In all your dealings with the blessed Word, remember the same truth...abide in Jesus, your wisdom. Study much to know the written Word, but study more to know the living Word, in whom you are of God. Jesus, the wisdom of God, is only known by a life of unspoken confidence and obedience. The words He speaks are spirit and life to those who live in Him. Therefore, each time you read, or hear, or meditate upon the Word, be careful to take up your true position. Realize first your oneness with Him who is the wisdom of God. Know yourself to be under His direct and special training. Go to the Word abiding in Him, the very fountain of Divine light. in His light you will see light.

In all your daily life, its ways and its work, abide in Jesus as your wisdom. Your body and your daily life share in the great salvation. In Christ, the wisdom of God, provision has been made for their guidance too. Your body is His temple, your daily life the sphere for glorifying Him. It is to Him a matter of deep interest that all your earthly concerns should be rightly guided. Only trust His encouragement, believe His love, and wait for His guidance. It will be given. As you abide in Him, your mind will be calmed and freed from passion, and your judgment will be cleared and strengthened. The light of heaven will shine on your earthly things, and your prayer for wisdom, like Solomon's, will be fulfilled above what you ask or think.

And so, especially in any work you do for God, abide in Jesus as your wisdom. "We are...created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). Let all fear or doubt - lest we should not know exactly what these works are - be put far away. In Christ we are created for them. He will show us what they are, and how to do them. Cultivate the habit of rejoicing in the assurance that the Divine wisdom is guiding you, even where you do not yet see the way.

All that you can wish to know is perfectly clear to Him. As Man - as Mediator - He has access to the counsels of Deity and to the secrets of Providence. He will work these things in your interest and on your behalf. If you will only trust Him fully, and abide in Him entirely, you can be confident of having perfect guidance.

Yes, abide in Jesus as your wisdom. Seek to maintain the spirit of waiting and dependence, that always seeks to learn, and will not move unless and until the heavenly light leads you on. Withdraw yourself from all needless distraction, close your ears to the voices of the world, and be as a submissive learner, always listening for the heavenly wisdom the Master has to teach. Surrender all your own wisdom. Seek a deep conviction of the utter blindness of the natural understanding in the things of God. Wait for Jesus to teach and to guide you as to what you have to believe and what you have to do. Remember that the teaching and guidance does not come from outside of you. It is by His life within us that the Divine wisdom does His work. Withdraw frequently with Him into the inner chamber of the heart, where the gentle voice of the Spirit is only heard when all is still. Hold fast with unshaken confidence, even in the midst of darkness and apparent desertion, His own assurance that He is the light and the leader of His own. And, above all, live day by day in the blessed truth that, as He Himself, the living Christ Jesus, is your wisdom, your first and last care must ALWAYS be this alone—to abide in Him. Abiding in Him, His wisdom will come to you as the spontaneous outflowing of a life rooted in Him. I am - I abide in Christ, who was made unto us wisdom from God. Wisdom WILL be given to me.

Abide In Christ - Day 6 - God Himself Has United You To Him (Video Devotional)

“But of (God) you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—” 1 Corinthians 1:30

“...My Father is the Vinedresser.” - John 15:1

“...You are in Christ Jesus." The believers at Corinth were still feeble and carnal, only babes in Christ. And yet Paul wants them, at the outset of his teaching, to know distinctly that they are in Christ Jesus. The whole Christian life depends on the clear consciousness of our position in Christ. Most essential to the abiding in Christ is the daily renewal of our faith's assurance, "l am in Christ Jesus." All fruitful preaching to believers must take this as its starting point: "You are IN Christ Jesus."

But the apostle has an additional thought, of almost greater importance: "But of God are you in Christ Jesus." He would have us not only remember our union to Christ, especially that it is not our own doing, but the work of God Himself. As the Holy Spirit teaches us to realize this, we shall see what a source of assurance and strength it must become to us. If it is through God alone that I am in Christ, then God Himself, the Infinite One, becomes my security for all I can need or wish in seeking to abide in Christ.

Let me try and understand what it means, this wonderful "of God you are in Christ." In becoming partakers of the union with Christ, there is a work God does and a work we have to do. God does His work by moving us to do our work. The work of God is hidden and silent. What we do is something distinct and tangible. Conversion and faith, prayer and obedience, are conscious acts of which we can give a clear account; while the spiritual quickening and strengthening that come from above are secret and beyond the reach of human sight. And so it comes that when the believer tries to say, "I am in Christ Jesus," he looks more to the work he did himself, rather than to that wonderful secret work of God which united him to Christ. Nor can it well be otherwise at the start of the Christian walk. "I know whom I have believed," is a valid testimony. But it is of great consequence that the mind should be led to see that, behind our turning and believing and accepting Christ, there was God's almighty power doing its work. It was inspiring our will, taking possession of us, and carrying out its own purpose of love in planting us into Christ Jesus. As the believer enters into this, the Divine side of the work of salvation, he will learn to praise and to worship with new exultation. He will be made to rejoice more than ever in the divineness of that salvation he has been made partaker of. At each step he reviews, the song will come, "This is the Lord's doing,"— Divine Omnipotence working out what Eternal Love had devised. “Of God I am in Christ Jesus."

The words will lead him even further and higher, even to the depths of eternity. "Whom He predestined, these He also called” (Romans 8:30). The calling in time is the manifestation of the purpose in eternity. Before the world was, God had fixed the eye of His sovereign love on you in the election of grace and chosen you in Christ. That you know yourself to be in Christ, is the stepping-stone by which you rise to understand in its full meaning the word, "of God I am in Christ Jesus." With the prophet, your language will be, "The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you” (Jer. 31:3) And you will recognize your own salvation as a part of that "mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself” (Eph. 1:9) and join with the whole body of believers in Christ as these say, "In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11) Nothing will more exalt free grace, and make man bow very low before it, than this knowledge of the mystery "Of God in Christ."

It is easy to see what a mighty influence it must exert on the believer who seeks to abide in Christ. What a sure standing it gives him, as he rests his right to Christ and all His fullness on nothing less than the Father's own purpose and work! We have thought of Christ as the Vine, and the believer as the branch. Let us not forget that other precious word, "My Father is the Vinedresser (or the Farmer)." The Saviour said, "Every plant which my Heavenly Father had not planted will be uprooted," but every branch grafted by Him in the True Vine shall never be plucked out of His hand. It was the Father to whom Christ owed all that He was, and in the Father He had all His strength and His life as the Vine. In the same way, the believer owes to the Father his place and his security in Christ. The same love and delight with which the Father watched over the beloved Son Himself, watches over every member of His body, everyone who is in Christ Jesus.

What confident trust this faith inspires,—not only as to the being kept in safety to the end, but especially as to the being able to fulfill in every point the object for which I have been united to Christ. The branch is as much in the charge and keeping of the vinedresser as the vine is. His honor is as much concerned in the well being and growth of the branch as it is of the vine. The God who chose Christ to be the Vine fitted Him thoroughly for the work He had to perform as the Vine. The God who has chosen me and planted me in Christ, has purposed to secure me, if I will only let Him. I do this by yielding myself to Him, that in every way I might be worthy of Jesus Christ. Oh. that I would only realize this fully! What confidence and urgency it would give to my prayer to the God and Father of Jesus Christ! How it would quicken the sense of dependence, and make me see that praying without ceasing is indeed the one need of my life — an unceasing waiting, moment by moment, on the God who has united me to Christ, to perfect His own Divine work, to work in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

And what a motive this would be for the highest activity in the maintenance of a fruitful branch-life! Motives are mighty powers. It is of infinite importance to have them high and clear. Here surely is the highest: "You are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works” (Eph. 2:10 KJV) grafted by Him into Christ, so that you might bring forth much fruit. Whatever God creates is exquisitely suited to its end. He created the sun to give light: how perfectly it does its work! He created the eye to see: how beautifully it fulfills its object! He created the new man unto good works: how admirably it is fitted for its purpose!

Of God I am in Christ: created anew, made a branch of the Vine, fitted for fruit-bearing. Would to God that believers would cease looking most at their old nature, and complaining of their weakness, as if God called them to what they were not fitted for! If only they would believingly and joyfully accept the wondrous revelation of how God, in uniting them to Christ, has made Himself chargeable for their spiritual growth and fruitfulness. How all sickly hesitancy and sloth would disappear, and under the influence of this mighty motive—the faith in the faithfulness of Him of whom they are in Christ —their whole nature would rise to accept and fulfill their glorious destiny!

O my soul! Yield yourself to the mighty influence of this word: "of God you are in Christ Jesus!" It is the same God through whom Christ is made all that He is for us, through whom we also are in Christ, and will most surely be made what we must be to Him. Take time to meditate and to worship, until the light that comes from the throne of God has shone into you, and you have seen your union to Christ as indeed the work of His almighty Father. Take time, day after day, and let, in your whole religious life, with all it has of claims and duties, of needs and wishes, let God be everything. See Jesus, as He speaks to you, "Abide in me," pointing upward and saying, "my Father Is Your Vinedresser. Of Him you are in me, through Him you abide in me, and to Him and to His glory shall be the fruit you bear." And let your answer be, ‘Amen, Lord! So be it. From eternity Christ and I were ordained for each other; inseparably we belong to each other: it is God's will; I shall abide in Christ. It is of God that I am in Christ Jesus.’

Abide In Christ - Day 5 - As You Came To Him By Faith (Video Devotional-Updated Edition)

Abide in Christ by Andrew Murray

Day 5

AS YOU CAME TO HIM BY FAITH

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. (Colossians 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. Faith is not only essential at the beginning of our spiritual walk in Him, but faith is also essential for the continual progress of our 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, they 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 that the sinner is justified by faith (see Romans 3:28), they have hardly found a place in their scheme for the larger truth, "The just shall LIVE by faith” (Rom. 1:17) 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 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. This is because believing is the one channel through which divine grace and strength can flow out into the heart of man. The old nature of the believer remains evil and sinful to the last. Yet 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 you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted...in Him and established in the faith...abounding in it....” As you first came to Jesus, so now abide in Him by faith.

And if you would know how faith is to be exercised in abiding in Jesus in this way, to be rooted more deeply and firmly in Him, you have only to look back to the time when you first 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 as you saw yourself to be. Then there was the sense of weakness and death. You did not feel the power for the surrender and the trust to which you were called. And then there was the future. You did not dare undertake to be a disciple of Jesus while you felt so sure that you could not remain standing, but would quickly again be unfaithful and fall. These difficulties were like mountains in your way. And how were they removed? Simply by the Word of God. That Word, as it were, compelled you to believe that, in spite of the 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 dared to come, and you were not deceived. You found that Jesus did indeed accept and save.

Now 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 now on I will abide in You. " 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. In this 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, do you not think, now that you are His own, that He will not fulfil His promise to you EVEN MORE? 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 is so simple and so sure: By His almighty grace you now are in Him. That same almighty grace will indeed enable you to abide in Him. By faith you became 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” (John 15:5). The safety and the fruitfulness of the branch depend upon the strength of the vine. Do not think so much of yourself as a branch, nor of the abiding as your duty, UNTIL you have first had your soul filled with the faith of what Christ IS as the Vine. 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 in saying, "I am in Him." It makes the abiding so simple. If I realize clearly as I meditate: “Now I am in Him, I see at once that there is nothing lacking 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 hath prepared a.home for me with Himself, when He says, "Abide in my love.” His power has undertaken to keep the door, and to keep me in, if I will only consent. I am in Christ: I have now only to say, “Savior, I bless You for this wondrous grace. I yield myself to Your gracious keeping. I do abide in You."

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 who believes” (Mark 9:23). "This is the victory that overcomes...even our faith” (1 John 5:4). 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 that wonderful Savior whom God hath given us,—the Infinite Immanuel. 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 heeding the promise, “...If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father” (1 John 2:24). It lives by “every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). And so it makes the soul strong with the strength of God, to be and to do all that is needed for abiding in Christ.

Believer, 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.

Note.

'"I am the True Vine” (John 15:1). He who offers us the privilege of an actual union with Himself is the great I Am, the almighty God, who upholds all things by the word of His power. And this almighty God reveals Himself as our perfect Savior, even to the unimaginable extent of seeking to renew our fallen natures by grafting them into His own Divine nature.

To realize the glorious Deity of Him whose call sounds forth to longing hearts with such exceeding sweetness, is no small step towards gaining the full privilege to which we are invited. But longing is by itself of no use. Still less can there be any profit in reading of the blessed results to be gained from a close and personal union with our Lord, if we believe that union to be practically beyond our reach. His words are meant to be a living, an eternal, precious reality. And this they can never become unless we are sure that we may reasonably expect their accomplishment. But what could make the accomplishment of such an idea possible? What could make it reasonable to suppose that we poor, weak, selfish creatures, full of sin and full of failures, might be saved out of the corruption of our nature and made partakers of the holiness of our Lord? Only the fact - the marvelous, unalterable fact - that He who proposes to us so great a transformation is Himself the everlasting God, as able as He is willing to fulfill His own word. In meditating, therefore, upon these utterances of Christ, containing as they do the very essence of His teaching and the very concentration of His love, let us, at the beginning, put away all tendency to doubt. Let us not allow ourselves so much as to question whether such erring disciples as we are can be enabled to attain the holiness to which we are called through a close and intimate union with our Lord. If there be any impossibility, any falling short of the proposed blessedness, it will arise from the lack of earnest desire on our part. There is no lack in any respect on His part who puts forth the invitation. With God there can be no shortcoming in the fulfillment of His promise." (The Life of Fellowship; Meditations on John 15:1-2 by A. M. James)

It is perhaps necessary to say, for the sake of young or doubting Christians, that there is something more necessary than the effort to exercise faith in each separate promise that is brought under our notice. What is of even greater importance is the cultivation of a trustful disposition towards God, the habit of always thinking of Him, of His ways and His works, with bright, confiding hopefulness. In such soil alone can the individual promises strike root and grow up. In a little work published by the Tract Society, Encouragements to Faith, by James Kimball, there will be found many most suggestive and helpful thoughts, all pleading for the right God has to claim that He shall be trusted. The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life is another little work that has been a great help to many. Its bright and buoyant tone, its loving and unceasing repetition of the keynote,—we may indeed depend on Jesus to do all He has said, and more than we can think,—has breathed hope and joy into many a heart that was almost ready to despair of ever getting on. In Frances Havergal's Kept for the Master's Use, there is the same healthful, hope-inspiring tone.

Abide in Christ - Day 4 - As the Branch In The Vine (Video Devotional)

ABIDE IN CHRIST by Andrew Murray

Day 4

As the Branch in the Vine

I am the Vine, you are the branches.—John 15:5

It was in the Parable of the Vine in John 15 that our Lord first used the expression, "Abide in Me." That parable, so simple, and yet so rich in its teaching, gives us the best and most complete illustration of the meaning of our Lord's command, and the union to which He invites us.

The parable teaches us the nature of that union. The connection between the vine and the branch is a living one. No external, temporary union will do. No work of man can accomplish it. The branch, whether an original or an engrafted one, exists only as the Creator's own work. It exists by virtue of the fact that the life, the sap, the fatness, and the fruitfulness of the vine communicate themselves to the branch. And it is just so with the believer too. His union with his Lord is no work of human wisdom or human will, but an act of God, by which the closest and most complete life-union is accomplished between the Son of God and the sinner. "God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts.'' (Gal. 4:6) The same Spirit which dwelt and still dwells in the Son, becomes the life of the believer. In the unity of that one Spirit, and the fellowship of the same life which is in Christ, he is one with Him. As between the vine and the branch, it is a life-union which makes them one.

The parable teaches us the completeness of this union. So close is the union between the vine and the branch, that each is nothing without the other. Each is WHOLLY for the other, and each is ONLY for the other.

Without the vine the branch can do nothing. The branch owes to the vine its place in the vineyard, its life and its fruitfulness. And so the Lord says, '' Without me you can do nothing.'' The believer can each day be pleasing to God only in that which he does through the power of Christ dwelling in him. The daily inflowing of the life-sap of the Holy Spirit is his only power to bring forth fruit. He lives alone IN HIM and is dependent ON HIM ALONE for each moment.

Without the branch, the vine can also do nothing. A vine without branches can bear no fruit. The vine is as indispensable to the branch as the branch is to the vine. Such is the wonderful condescension of the grace of Jesus. Just as His people are dependent on Him, He has also made Himself dependent on them. Without His disciples He cannot dispense His blessing to the world. He cannot offer sinners the grapes of the heavenly Canaan. Do not marvel! It is His own design! This is the high honor to which He has called His redeemed ones. As indispensable as He is to them in heaven, that from Him THEIR FRUIT may be found, so indispensable are they to Him on earth, that through them HIS FRUIT may be found. Believers, meditate on this, until your souls bow to worship in the presence of the mystery of the perfect union between Christ and the believer.

There is more...as neither the vine nor the branch is anything without the other, so is neither anything EXCEPT FOR the other.

All the vine possesses belongs to the branches. The vine does not gather from the soil its fatness and its sweetness for itself—all it has is at the disposal of the branches. As it is in the parent, so it is in the servant to the branches. And Jesus, to whom we owe our lives, completely gives Himself FOR US and TO US. "The glory You gave me, I have given them " (John 17:22). "He who believes in me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do..." (John 4:12). All His fullness and all His riches are for you, O believer; for the vine does not live for itself, keeps nothing for itself, but exists only for the branches. All that Jesus is in heaven, He is for us. He has no interest there separate from ours; as our representative He stands before the Father.

And all the branch possesses belongs to the vine. The branch does not exist for itself. It exists only to bear fruit that can proclaim the excellence of the vine. It has no reason of existence except to be of service to the vine. Glorious image of the calling of the believer, and the his entire consecration to the service of his Lord. As Jesus gives Himself so wholly over to him, the believer feels himself urged to be wholly his Lord's. Every power of his being, every moment of his life, every thought and feeling, belong to Jesus, that FROM HIM and FOR HIM he may bring forth fruit . As he realizes what the vine is to the branch, and what the branch is meant to be to the vine, he feels that he has but one thing to think of, and to live for, and that is, the will, the glory, the work, the kingdom of his blessed Lord,—the bringing forth of fruit to the glory of His name.

The parable teaches us the reason for the believer’s union with Christ. The branches are for fruit and fruit alone. "Every branch that bears not fruit He takes away." (John 15:2) The branch needs leaves for the maintenance of its own life, and the perfection of its fruit. The fruit itself it bears to give away to those around. As the believer enters into his calling as a branch, he sees that he has to forget himself, and to live entirely for his fellow men. Jesus came to love them, to seek them, and to save them. For this every branch on the Vine has to live as much as the Vine itself. It is for fruit...MUCH FRUIT...that the Father has made us one with Jesus.

What a wonder this Parable of the Vine is! It unveils the mysteries of the Divine love, of the heavenly life, of the world of Spirit. How little have I understood these things! Jesus is the living Vine in heaven, and I am the living branch on earth! How little have I understood how great my need, but also how perfect my claim to all His fullness! How little understood is the greatness of His need, but also how perfect His claim is to my emptiness! Let me, in its beautiful light, study the wonderful union between Jesus and His people, until it becomes to me the guide into full communion with my beloved Lord. Let me listen and believe, until my whole being cries out, "Jesus is indeed to me the True Vine, bearing me, nourishing me, supplying me, using me, and filling me up fully to make me bring forth fruit abundantly." Then shall I not fear to say, '' I am indeed a branch to Jesus, the True Vine, abiding in Him, resting on Him, waiting for Him, serving Him, and living only so that through me, He may show forth the riches of His grace, and give His fruit to a perishing world.

It is when we try in this way to understand the meaning of the parable, that the blessed command spoken in connection with it will come home to us in its true power. The thought of what the Vine is to the branch, and Jesus is to the believer, will give new force to the words, "Abide in me!" It will be as if He says, "Think, soul, how completely I belong to you. I have joined myself inseparably to you; all the fulness and fatness of the Vine are yours in very deed. Now once you are in me, be assured that all I have is wholly yours. It is my interest and my honor to have you be a fruitful branch. Only Abide in Me. You are weak, but I am strong. You are poor, but I am rich. Only abide in Me. Yield yourself wholly to my teaching and rule. Simply trust My love, My grace and My promises. Only believe. I am wholly yours; I am the Vine, you are the branch. Abide in me."

What do you say, believer? Will you no longer hesitate, or withhold yourself? Or will you not, instead of only thinking how hard and how difficult it is to live like a branch of the True Vine, because you thought of it as something you had to accomplish--shall you not now begin to look upon it as the most blessed and joyful thing under heaven? Will you not believe that, now you once are in Him, He Himself will keep you and enable you to abide? On your part, abiding is nothing but the acceptance of your position in Him and your consent to be kept there. It is the surrender of faith to the strong Vine still to hold the feeble branch. Will you not say, “Yes, I will, I do abide in you, blessed Lord Jesus.

O Saviour, how unspeakable is you love! "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it." (Psalm 139:6) I can only yield myself to Your love with the prayer that, day by day, You will reveal to me some of its precious mysteries, and so encourage and strengthen Your loving disciple to do what his heart really desires to do—ever, only wholly to abide in You.