Abiding in Christ: The Extraordinary Command for our Ordinary Lives

Have you ever wondered what it looks like to live in freedom, not just theoretical freedom but real freedom, unbound from slavery to sin? Have you ever wondered — even just a little bit— if the peace Jesus promised or hope we’re supposed to experience as “living hope” is somehow reserved for only the really faithful? Have you ever wondered what real abundant life looks like? What does joy to the full look like in everyday moments? And can we — normal, average, regular people — actually experience it? Really? Is there a key or a secret that we’re missing that keeps us from fully experiencing the new life Jesus promised us? Why are we continually stuck in sin, even after Jesus paid for it? In John 15, Jesus gave His followers a command — abide. What if that’s what we’re missing?

In John 15, Jesus actually tells us that abiding in Him is exactly what we’re missing. He says: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (The ESV Study Bible, John 15:4-5). Notice that He doesn’t say “apart from me you can somethings,” He says “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). If this is a command that the Son of God has given to His followers, shouldn’t we obey the command? But how? What does this strange, biblical, philosophical word abide mean? Where do we start? What does abiding entail? And specifically, what does it look like in ordinary moments of every day?

Christians today have probably heard “abide in me” before. If you were to ask a majority of them, they could probably tell you what it means: it’s living out the gospel, walking with Christ, or how you live the christian life, but if you were peel back another layer and ask them what it looks like to apply this command to their everyday lives, it’s a whole other issue. All of the sudden there’s confusion. What does it look like to practically abide; not just knowing the definition, but knowing what it means and how to actually live truly abiding in Christ? Not just abiding theoretically or thinking deeply about it, but what does abiding look like in the regular moments of everyday life? Christ doesn’t specifically spell out what abiding looks like, but He does give us a metaphor to help us understand what he means. Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Here Christ uses the picture of a Vine and branches. The Vine gives life to the branches, the Vine produces the fruit through the branches, and the branches remain in the Vine. This is not the only picture that the Bible gives us to demonstrate this command. Dane Ortlund says it this way: “We are given images such as a vine and its branches or a head and other body parts, or even a groom and his bride.” All of these create pictures that we humans can understand, even in our limited knowledge. We understand because we’ve seen all of these relationships. “In all cases there is an organic, intimate uniting, a sharing of properties, a oneness. The vine gives life to the branches; the head directs and cares for its body parts; the husband nourishes and cherishes his wife as he does his own body” (Ortlund 59-60). All of these metaphors point back to the command: abide. The problem, however, is that the metaphor of a vine and its branches is something that is used widely in the church today, but I’m not sure many Christians actually understand what it is referring to or what it means.

As I started the journey of learning what it means to abide, I had no idea how much the Lord would teach me. If I’m honest, I decided to research what abiding in Christ looks like because I wanted a checklist that I could follow to know I was walking with Jesus. As I’ve continued to learn about abiding however, the Lord has shown me that abiding is not something that can be put in a box. Abiding looks different for each person, and there aren’t a set of rules to follow. Yes, there are different aspects of abiding that are universal for all believers, but each person abides differently. Why? Because abiding is a relationship. Just as each relationship is different person to person, each relationship with Christ will also be different. What are the main aspects of a relationship with Christ?

Because the Bible was not written originally in English, to understand the concept of abiding, we must look to the original Greek word, meno. The Greek word meno means to remain, to stay, to reside, to dwell, to withstand. Ruth Chou Simons, an author and artist, explains it this way: “[Meno] means to physically stand your ground. It means to not wander away or give up your resolve. It means to stay engaged and endure. It means to keep in step with Christ and not yield to the world” (Simons 216). This helpful definition gives a better picture of what abiding means. It means to intentionally choose to walk with Christ and lean into Him every single moment of every day. It’s a step by step journey, leaning into Christ as we move forward in faith. Abiding in Christ is first a union with Christ where the Christian is grafted into the Vine by the Father, as he surrenders his life to Christ. That union becomes an intimate relationship with Christ through constant surrender, saturation of His word, and pruning by the Father. Abiding is not works; it is not the production of fruit, instead, it is a choice to drink in Christ for His presence alone, and as we do, He chooses when and where to produce fruit in us for His glory.

To begin his command, Jesus starts with describing the key players in abiding. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser” (John 15:1). Notice that Christ here says that He is the “True Vine.” If he is saying that he is the True Vine, then that must mean that there are other vines our hearts latch onto. The first crucial aspect of abiding is that the branch must first be unified with the True Vine before they can receive life from this vine. A person cannot abide in Christ unless they first have a relationship with Christ. But then there’s the problem. God is holy and we are not. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Because of sin, we are forever separated from God. Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” This death is not just talking about the death that we will all experience at the end of our lives. Paul is talking about separation, which results because of our sin, from God forever. We earn eternal condemnation, punishment, and separation from God. There is nothing that we can do to make ourselves good enough to repay this debt each of us owe. Even if we try really hard and work as hard as we can to be “good people,” we will still be separated from God. That’s the wage of sin. But thanks be to God, that’s not the end of the story. “God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God the Father sent His one and only Son to earth. His Son was fully God and fully man at the same time. Even though He was fully man, Jesus Christ lived a perfect life; He never sinned. But He who knew no sin became sin so that “in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Christ willingly went to the cross and died as payment of every single sin. Because He never sinned, He could be the perfect sacrifice. Christ paid the price for our sins through dying on the cross, and through His death we can have life. When we realize our need for a Savior, and look to Christ as the only One who can save us from our sin, His blood covers us. Paul says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Because of what Christ did for us on the cross, we are saved from the punishment of eternal separation. We can now have a relationship with a Holy God. As we transfer our trust to Jesus to pay the debt we owe, He transfers his righteousness to us so that we may “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace in the time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). Because of what Christ did on the cross, we can have a relationship with the Son of God. That relationship is called abiding.

Not only are we now able to have a relationship with Christ because of what He did on the cross for us, but we are also called to a new way of living. With a new identity comes a responsibility to live in the identity Christ has given us. It is a responsibility, not just a free gift. In Ephesians 4, Christians are commanded to “put off your old self, which belongs to your formal manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,” and then we are called to “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24). We are called to put away our sinful way of life and instead live in the freedom that Christ has given us. John 15:11 says, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Christ is calling us to a new life — a life overflowing with His joy. My family is living in an apartment right now while we wait for more permanent housing. If we bought a beautiful new house and decided to stay in the apartment, it would be considered weird and insane. The new, beautiful house is ours — we bought it — but instead of moving and living in our new space, we choose to live in a small, cramped apartment. That would be strange, right? It’s the same if we choose to live in our past sin and not abide. Christ has bought us. We are His, and we now have an opportunity to live in freedom and fellowship with the God of the whole universe, but we choose to stay in our anxiety-producing, death-promising apartment of sin (Bradshaw). Abiding is the call to live in relationship with Christ and therefore leave the past behind.

If abiding is a relationship, we must understand the person with whom we have this relationship. The Bible says that the branches are attached to the True Vine. Who is this vine? Christ himself says that He is the Vine, the one who breathes life-giving sap into the branches. In Matthew 11, Christ gives us a specific picture of who He is. He says He is “gentle and lowly,” meaning He is kind, caring, and welcomes each of us with open arms (Matthew 11:29). The Bible also says that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). These all mean that the Vine we are attached to is someone who is loving, gentle, gracious, and wants us to come to Him. This reality should change how we interact with the Vine. The Vine — our life source — is love, and His love never changes. The Bible says that Christ is the same “yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). If He is constant, we can rest in His love for us and rest in His unchanging embrace (Ortlund 80). Through knowing who He is, we can enter into a deeper, more intimate relationship with Him. Instead of fearing the Vine, we can have a sweet, intimate relationship with the Son of God that is fueled by His love. We can rest in Him when we understand His great love for us, which was demonstrated to us on the cross. Abiding means resting forever in the Vine, but it also means resting in the Vine throughout each moment of every day. The more we know Christ and understand His character, the more deeply we can abide in Him.

This relationship is the greatest gift anyone could give you. Think about it this way: you have been given an opportunity to have a deep, intimate relationship with the Creator of the entire universe, and it is not a relationship fueled by fear or duty, as some might think; it’s one that’s fueled by love. Christ is love. Josh Houston, a pastor and teacher of theology writes, “You have been called to share intimacy with Jesus, your Creator, because of love, not because you’re scared of him or because it’s ‘the right thing to do.’ Intimacy founded on great or mere obligation is actually far from intimacy” (Houston 19). The special union with Christ doesn’t work if the believer is reluctant to have fellowship with the Creator. A lot of Christians today, myself included at times, believe that we must spend time reading the Bible and praying. We must go to church — that’s our duty as Christians. But if we live out of a sense of duty and checking something off of a list, we completely miss the invitation to abide. We miss the fact that because Jesus loves us, we can have a relationship with Him. We should be motivated by who He is and what He’s done for us, not just a feeling of duty. Think of it this way: if I had a friend whom I didn’t love, but I hung out with them because I felt I had to, the relationship would be fake and manufactured. It’s the same with Christ. If I feel I have to read the Bible and go to church and pray, my relationship with Christ will be manufactured and fake. Only when we understand who Christ is and how much He loves us can we share intimacy with the Son of God.

Intimacy doesn’t work if the believer doesn’t understand who Christ is, what He’s done, and how much He loves them. Christ wants believers to abide in Him; He died so that we might have fellowship with Him. “It is nothing less than a life of abiding, unbroken fellowship with Himself to which [Christ] is seeking to lift you up...Union with Himself, and so the Father, is His highest object” (Murray 25). Christ wants intimacy with each of us. That’s why He came. That’s why He died. And He gives Himself as an example for what intimacy truly looks like. “He’s asking us to model our pursuit of intimacy with him after his pursuit of intimacy with us” (Houston 16). Throughout the gospels, Christ reveals Himself as One who is kind and gentle and loving. As we embrace Him and His love for us, the union with Christ becomes a special, intimate, personal relationship with Christ. “When you root identity in your branch- ness in Jesus, your desire to be intimate with him increases, which increases your desire to be obedient to him, causing you to return in rooting identity in him at a deeper level” (Houston 27). This settledness in Christ and the intimate union with Him allows a deep relationship between the Son of God and sinners like us.

I don’t know about you, but I quickly look around me and live in fear of what other people think of me. I place my identity in the acceptance and affirmation of others. When I choose to live fearful of my reputation, I never live settled. The settledness we find in Christ however, only comes from believing how much He loves us and understanding our new position in Him. We are no longer separated from God; in fact, “to all who did receive [Christ], he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). We’re not separated, we’re His children — forever. Our new identity brings security and settledness in Christ. Christ’s love is our new foundation. Now we can abide.

God is love. His love, demonstrated through the work of Christ on the cross, frames this relationship. His love is contagious, and as we lean into this union, we fall more in love with Him. “One way that we display our love for God is through our trust, prayer, and devotion to him. We abide through relationship. We pursue in love. We pray in love. We obey in love” (Newbell). Christ’s love flows through us as we believe that His love is enough. As we believe that his love is enough, we fall more in love with Him. As we fall more in love with Him, we want to obey His commandments. In John 15, Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:13). Christ demonstrates His love for us through laying down His life for us. Once we understand and believe the reality of His sacrifice for us, our love for Him grows and our relationship with Him, our Friend, deepens.

Leaning into Christ’s love for us is not the only way that we grow closer to Christ. Just before Jesus Christ gave the command to abide in Him, he promised to send a Helper, someone who understands Christ and points our hearts to Him. “[T]he Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). As soon as I put my faith in Christ, I was “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 1:13). Jesus, the thirty-three year old man, doesn’t come to live inside of me, but His Spirit does. The Spirit lives inside of me, and is leading me to the Vine and helping my heart understand who the Vine is. Not only that, but the Holy Spirit also helps me trust in the Vine and therefore grow as the Vinedresser exposes and removes sin patterns as He prunes. Ortlund encourages his readers to “ask the Father to fill you with the Spirit. Look to Christ, in the power of the Spirit. Open yourself up to the Spirit. Consecrate yourself to the beautiful Spirit’s ways in your life. Recognize and believe way down deep in your heart that without the empowering Spirit all...will be in vain” (Ortlund 169-170). One of the crucial things we must recognize is that we cannot live this spiritual life on our own. I know that I quickly am distracted by the things of the world around me, and I choose to revert back to my old sin patterns over and over again. The good news is that I don’t have to try to abide on my own. Actually, I can’t abide on my own. Jesus clearly says, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). He does however provide us a Helper whose job is to literally help us live as a new creation. In other words, the Holy Spirit’s job is to help us rest in Christ — it’s to help us abide. Not only that, but His job is to bring us closer to Christ, to help us rest more deeply in Him and His love for us.

Let’s go back to John 15:1. Jesus says, “I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser.” This means that the Father has the responsibility to cut off branches that are not truly a part of the tree and also prune the branches to help them grow as He sees fit. First, the Father must remove the branches that are not truly connected to the vine. Jesus says in John 15, “If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned” (John 15:5). If someone who professes to be a follower of Christ chooses not to abide and instead get their life source from something or someone else, the Father will cut them off from the Vine. This means that there must be real disciples and non-real disciples. “The difference between the unreal disciple and the true disciple, in John’s language, is abiding” (Piper, ”Glorifying God"). There are people in the church who choose to profess Christ but do not abide. Just going to church does not save someone. If you profess with your mouth that Jesus is your Lord but deny Him with your life, you are living as a practical atheist. There must be a true transfer of trust to the One who can ultimately pay the debt. Abiding in Christ is drawing near to the life-giving grace of Christ so that Christ may bear fruit through you. Without that, it’s not a true union with Christ. Living a good life, going to church and projecting a facade won’t save anybody. The intimate union and relationship with Christ is what transforms any true believer in Christ. When someone is only professing to believe in Christ instead of truly transferring their trust, the Bible says the Father will cut them off from the Vine.

Not only is His role to cut the nonbeliever from the Vine, but the Father also prunes the believers. The Bible says that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). While Christ has raised us from the dead and rescued us from our past, the flesh is still alive in each of us. John Piper defines flesh as “the ego which feels an emptiness and uses the resources in its own power to try to fill it. Flesh is the “I” who tries to satisfy me with anything but God’s mercy” (Piper, “The War Within”). The flesh is our old sin patterns — our old way of living without Christ. It’s what we worship and live for apart from Christ. Out of the flesh comes sinful desires, desires that contradict God. “[E]ach person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire” (James 1:14). Now it is important to note that the new life of Christ will always outshine and overpower the evil that lives inside of each human. So while we all have our flesh still living inside of us as our natural tendencies, we also have the life of the Vine coursing through our veins. The goal of abiding is to look more like Christ, and our old, fleshly desires must be replaced by desires that come from the Lord. “The Father is the Husbandman. He has grafted the life of Christ on your life. That holy life is mightier than your evil life; under the watchful care of the Husbandmen, that new life can keep down the workings of the evil life within you” (Murray 58). The Father, through pruning, encourages the new life to outshine the evil of the fleshly desires. The goal of pruning is to make us look more like Christ. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says that we “are being transformed into [Christ’s] image from one degree of glory to another.” That’s the goal of pruning.

Not only does the Father prune to shape our desires to reflect His, but He also prunes so that our relationship with Christ deepens. John Piper explains that we draw closer to Christ because of the pain the pruning brings along with it. The painful realities around us show us that we cannot do anything without Christ, and we need His strength and love and power to continue. “[Our] external circumstances serv[e] [our] internal sweetness with Jesus. That’s why the metaphor includes the Vinedresser” (Piper, “Glorifying God”). The Holy Spirit points our hearts towards the Vine through the Word and gentle nudges. The Father points our hearts towards the Vine through pruning; through pain and through slow growth. “Pain seeds glory” (Ortlund 128). Through our pain, we are pointed to Christ, mostly because we realize we can’t do anything without Him. Paul, one of the apostles and early missionaries wrote, “I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” Pruning brings us to our weakest state, but that’s exactly where Christ wants to meet us. “[His] power is made perfect in [our] weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). The Father prunes and demonstrates our weakness through the pain of killing sin and the pain of the world around us. That weakness draws us closer to the Vine.

So now that we understand that to have a relationship with Christ, we must first unite with Christ through identifying with what He did for us on the cross, we also understand that Christ is the Vine, the Holy Spirit is our Helper, and the Father is the Vinedresser, what does abiding actually look like? What is our role in fulfilling this command everyday? As I’ve alluded to earlier, abiding is indeed a relationship with Christ.

After the original union with Christ, the union grows into an intimate relationship between Christ and the believer. It’s communion with Christ. Erik Reed, a pastor at The Journey Church in Tennessee states that “union with Christ without communion with Christ is joyless Christianity,” because fellowship with Christ is “live-giving, soul-thrilling, [and] joy-producing” (Reed). It is possible to have a union with Christ without experiencing connection with Christ. Abiding is a relationship, and just like any relationship, this communion with Christ takes time (Comer). Fellowship with Christ is a choice to spend time with Him; it’s a choice to know Him on a deeper level. Today, in our culture, we love being busy. The majority of the time, my excuse for not reading the Bible, praying, or spending any time with Christ or for Christ is “I don’t have time.” But think about it: you have time for what you prioritize. I have time for BeReal. I have time for friends. I have time for rest, school, and my sport. If any of us want an intimate relationship with the Son of God, we have to choose to prioritize Him. Then we’ll make time. Abiding is a decision to dedicate some of our time to Him.

While we have to make the choice to give our time to Christ, we also have to make the choice to surrender fully to Him. We as humans like the idea of control. We want power and control in our lives and will sometimes use any means necessary to gain control, or at least feel we have control. In reality however, we can do nothing. We control nothing — Christ does. Andrew Murray writes, “When [Christ] said, ‘Abide in me,’ He only asked the surrender to Himself, His almighty love would hold [the believers] fast, and keep and bless them” (18). When Christ calls believers to abide, He simply means surrender: surrender our attempt to control, surrender our desires, surrender our agenda. He calls for complete and total trust in Himself the Vine. Murray also states, “Abiding in Jesus is nothing but the giving up of oneself to be ruled and taught and led, and so resting in the arms of the Everlasting Love” (20). The wonderful reality is that as we surrender and rest in His steadfast love, we find more freedom and peace than if we controlled everything we wanted to. Surrendering to Him is embracing the freedom of knowing He is fully in control and trusting that truth no matter how we feel in the moment. Abiding is full and total surrender. It’s a choice.

Because “apart from [Christ] we can do nothing,” entire surrender is essential for abiding. We cannot produce fruit because we are trying to produce fruit (John 15:5). We cannot look more like the Vine by trying to look like the Vine. We can do nothing. Christ however can do everything. As we surrender He breathes His life into us, changes us to be more like Him, and then produces the fruit through us. The hardest part about surrender is understanding that there is nothing that we can do to make ourselves abide. Andrew Murray writes, “It is when the soul becomes utterly passive, looking and resting on what Christ is to do, that its energies are stirred to their highest activity, and that we work most effectively because we know He works in us” (Murray 24). This is really counterintuitive. Many believers think that if they become a Christian, they can work hard and do something to abide. The problem is that it is not something we do. Abiding happens when we finally realize that we cannot do anything and instead look to Christ and enjoy who He is as He works in and through us.

This relationship with Christ surpasses all joy and life that can be given through human interactions. Christ Himself says that He is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6). Through what He did on the cross, He brings spiritual life to all who believe in Him. When true believers engage in relationship with Him, His grace breathes life into them. “We (the branches) are to be connected to him (the Vine) for our life and sustenance” (Reed). Just like a vine gives nutrients to the branches, Christ gives life to the believer. His words breathe life into our souls and rejuvenate every longing heart. To help us understand this on a deeper level, Christ provides more metaphors throughout the gospels. “The moment by moment coming to be satisfied with the bread of heaven, the moment by moment drinking, believing, so as to be satisfied with the water of life, is abiding in the vine spoken in another metaphor” (Piper, “Prayer Vocalizes”). Bread and water give the consumer energy and sustenance. Christ claims that He is the Bread of Life and the Living Water (John 6:35, John 4:10). In both of these cases, Christ is claiming to be the only true satisfaction of our souls, and the only One who will truly breathe life into our hearts.

While abiding is complete and total surrender to Christ, we do have a role in this abiding relationship. A relationship with Christ is the same as all other relationships in that it takes time to build and grow (Comer 97). If we don’t take the time to grow in our knowledge and love for Christ, our relationship will be dysfunctional. For example, if I claim that I have a best friend who lives in Alaska, but I have never talked to that friend, never listened to that friend, and never given time to that friend, how can I claim that we are best friends? It’s the same with Christ. The less time we give Him, the less we experience intimacy in our relationship with Him. Not only that, but we need to listen to Him and talk to Him. Back to the best friend analogy, if I only listen to my best friend, or conversely I am the only one who talks in my relationship with my best friend, it is one-sided. The friendship won’t work. It’s the same with Christ. In our relationship with Christ, there must be two voices: Christ, speaking to us through His word, and us, speaking to Christ through prayer. Abiding in Christ is abiding in His word, because that is where we will find Him. 1 Samuel 3:21 says that God revealed Himself to His people through His word — that’s where we find Christ (Piper, “If you Abide in My Word”). Abiding also involves prayer. It’s how we reflect our desire, love, and gratefulness to Christ. Prayer takes abiding and makes it personal (Piper, “Prayer Vocalizes”). We have a role in this relationship; spend time with Christ, listen to Him, and talk to Him often.

Getting in the Bible is crucial to abiding because that’s where we will find Christ. The Bible says that Jesus Christ is the Word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1-2). When you spend time reading the Bible, you are not only reading about Christ, you are hearing Him speak to you. He is the main message — He is the sum of His words. If you want to know Jesus, you need to be in His word. John Piper says it very clearly this way: “If you try to run after the Lord without running through [the Bible] you will find someone else” (Piper, "If You Abide in My Word”). The Word is where you will find Christ. If you are looking for Him anywhere else, you won’t find Him; you’ll find a fabrication or something else to worship. Without the Word, there will be no relationship with the Son of God. John 1 says that Christ is our life. Deuteronomy 32:47 says, “it is no empty word for you, but your very life.” If Christ is our life, and the Word is our life, won’t we find Christ in His Word? The Lord reveals Himself to us through His word.

A common misconception for Christians is that if we read a Bible verse or a small devotion every morning or night that that’s enough for us to check the “quiet time” box and move on with the rest of the day. The problem is if we want to get to know our Savior and have a personal relationship, we must make the decision to spend time with Him in His word. I’m not talking about reading something that someone else has written about God or about the Bible. I’m talking about actually opening the Word of God and reading it for yourself. Instead of scrolling on Instagram, responding on Snapchat, or posting on Facebook, we should all sit down and read the Bible. Jesus says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples” (John 8:31). We are invited to read the Bible, yes, but also to abide in Christ who is the Word. What does it mean to be “in” the Word? John Piper describes it as living in the “force-field” of Christ’s Word. It means living in the truth of the word, the beauty of the word, the value of the word, and the power and grace of the word. It means being drawn into the peace, nourishment, trustworthiness, and illumination of the Word all day long. It means being held in the excitement and awe of the Word everyday. It’s a captivating force-field (Piper, “If You Abide in My Word”). When you spend time actually reading the Bible, you will grow more in love with Christ because you are spending time with Him. When you grow more in love with Christ, your desire to live in the force-field of His word will increase. You will surround yourself with Him and therefore become more like Him.

It’s said that who you surround yourself with is who you become. That is so true when it comes to spending time with Christ. As branches spend more time attached to the Vine, they grow to be stronger and look more similar to the Vine. It’s the same way with Christians and spending time with Christ. The more time you spend with Christ, the more you will look more like Christ. The more we look towards Christ, the more we become like Him. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2). The evidence of a life transformed to look like Christ is the result that comes from being with Christ. “As we abide in Him,” look towards Him and rest in Him, “we will bear the fruit of righteousness...it confirms our transformed heart” (Newbell). Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks and the body moves, all demonstrating what you are worshiping. When someone spends time with Christ, they bear fruit that honors Christ. When someone lives life saturated by the world, they will bear fruit that supports and glorifies the world. Your vine, and the sap that is therefore flowing through you, will determine what comes out of your heart and mouth.

Bearing fruit is a major result of abiding. Jesus says, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (John 15:5). According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, to bear means to “to be equipped or furnished with (something)” or “to permit growth of [something]” (“Bear”). In other words, to bear doesn’t mean to produce. It means to display, to bring forth what someone else has created. Andrew Murray says that fruit “is the work He does for us—the fruit and the power of His redeeming love. Our part is to simply yield, to trust, and to wait for what He has engaged to preform” (Murray 23). It’s not my job to “do better” and then look more like Christ through my life. My job is to surrender and live in relationship with Christ. Then, the Holy Spirit transforms me to look more like Christ and therefore I live differently than my old sinful self. “Bearing lasting fruit is impossible without abiding, but it is the inevitable result of an abiding life. Abiding is the key to fruit” (Houston 12). Bearing fruit is not abiding. Abiding bears fruit.

So what is this fruit that is produced as we abide? Despite popular belief, there are actually two parts to the fruit that Christ bears through us. The first is the fruit of the Spirit. Like I said earlier, it makes sense that it’s called the fruit of the Spirit because it’s the Spirit who produces it through us. It’s not called the fruit of Eleanor, because I am not the one making any of it happen. Galatians 5:22 says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control....” This fruit comes from abiding. When we live in our flesh, we produce fruit of the flesh. “Now the [fruits] of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Galatians 5:19-21). This is the great contrast of a life without abiding and a life with abiding. We produce lousy, life-sucking fruit, while the Spirit produces wonderful, life-filled fruit as a result of the abiding relationship. Christ redeems us from our past sinful self and calls us to a new life of abiding and demonstrating His traits through fruit.

So now that we know that abiding is a deep, intimate, life-giving relationship with the Son of God, what does it look like on a practical, daily reality? What happens when you go back into the classroom or onto the next chapter of life or get frustrated by your friends or siblings or kids? What does abiding look like when you’re cleaning the dishes or playing a sport? Abiding takes place in every moment of every day. Let’s walk together through some scenarios of abiding in regular, ordinary moments.

What might abiding look like when driving the car? Maybe it looks like listening to worship music instead of filling your head with Taylor Swift love songs. Maybe it looks like turning to the Lord and saying, “Oh Lord, please help me respond with grace and love instead of frustration,” after someone cuts you off in the middle of a round-about. Maybe after getting really frustrated after another person cuts you off ,it looks like pausing to ask the Lord to forgive you from sinning in your anger. Or maybe you just simply talk to Him while you drive.

What might abiding look like in a hard conversation with a friend? It could look like turning to the Lord in prayer in the midst of the conversation in your mind and saying, “Jesus what do I say? What should I do? How do I love my friend even after they’ve hurt me? Fill me with your love, Jesus. Help me not hold a grudge and instead forgive them like you forgave me.” It could also look like taking a moment to rehearse scripture. “Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor (Romans 12:10),” and then move forward believing that Christ will love through you.

What might abiding look like when your friend drives up in a brand new Porsche that you’ve been wanting for years, or gets new shoes or the prom dress you really want? Maybe it looks like praying that you will have words to say, and excitement to celebrate with your friend about their new fun thing. Talk to Him: “Jesus you are my treasure. Help me trust you and not covet.” Maybe it looks like reciting Psalm 84:11: “No good thing does [the Lord] withhold from those who walk uprightly,” moving forward believing that Jesus is better than any material thing, and He satisfies more than any thing here on earth ever could.

We humans love sports. We love cheering for a team or playing for a team or in an individual competition, but what happens when we lose? What does abiding look like when our favorite basketball team doesn’t make it to the Final Four, or the Colts don’t even make it to the playoffs again? What does abiding look like when your volleyball team loses or I loose a golf tournament? Again, we have a choice to trust the Lord and believe He won’t withhold any good thing and that He is better than winning. We can also choose to believe that His ways are better and higher than our ways, and that He has a good plan for us and our sport teams (Isaiah 55:8-9). We can talk to Him about it all.

What does abiding look like when we win? Instead of taking it for granted, it might look like stopping to thank Christ for the gift of a victory. Maybe it’s just a tiny breath prayer: “Thank you Jesus. That’s you in me.” I know that I quickly fall into pride once I’ve won, so maybe for me it looks like stopping to remind myself that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble,” and the Lord is the giver of “every good and every perfect gift” (James 4:6, James 1:17).

What might abiding look like on vacation or when we have downtime? Maybe instead of scrolling on social media or reading a brainless romance novel or action novel it looks like spending time with the family the Lord has given you and thanking Him for the special time for rest. Maybe it looks like reading a book that points you back to Christ. Maybe it looks like enjoying the creation around you and not forgetting to talk to the One who created it all: “Jesus, this is so beautiful. You are so beautiful.” It could also look like asking the Lord to help you not take rest for granted, or asking Him to remind you that He is your rest.

What might abiding look like as you prepare for the next chapter of life? Maybe instead of feeling anxious about what’s coming ahead, it could look like running to the Lord who is your Peace. It could look like reciting Matthew 6:34 to yourself: “Do not be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient is the day for its own trouble,” and instead pray “Jesus, help me seek first your kingdom and your righteousness.” Maybe when you are wishing the future was the present, talk to the Lord and ask Him to help you not dwell on the future, but instead stay content with the present. Psalm 37:3-4 says, “Trust in the Lord, do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Abiding in the midst of excitement of the next chapter could look like trusting the Lord to show you how to be faithful in every moment and stay present here and now.

There are so many moments in every day that we can choose to abide in Christ. In each situation I depicted, you’re not stepping aside for an extra quiet time to process with the Lord. You’re turning to Him in the midst of a conversation. You’re asking Him to help you abide in every moment, not just in the moments when you’re reading the Bible or worshiping in church. Abiding is a moment by moment choice to rest in Christ and how much He loves you. It’s a choice to live in the new life that He’s given you. It’s a choice to put off your old self and put on the new life of Christ. It’s asking for Him to see through your eyes, think through your mind, speak through your lips, and serve through your hands. It’s realizing how quickly we become independent and then turn back to depending on Him again and again. It’s literally living as a living sacrifice, being transformed by relationship with Christ every regular day (Romans 12:1-2).

In John 15, Jesus commands us to abide. He says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Jesus Christ died on the cross so that we might live in communion with the Holy God. When we transfer our trust from ourselves to Christ, we are called to live in this intimate union with Him. We are given the amazing gift of being able to talk to and spend time with the Son of God, and as we lean into this gift, Christ floods His life through us. Our relationship with the Vine is also deepened by pruning from the Father, the Vinedresser. As we spend time in prayer and reading the Bible, we not only grow closer to Christ but we also grow to look more like Him.

This relationship requires our surrender. We each need to come to the point where we realize that we need Jesus and can’t pay for our sins on our own. We each need to fully understand our sin and our weakness. As we transfer our trust to Him alone, Christ breathes His life into us. He produces His fruit through us as we choose to believe how much He loves us and as we choose to believe that His love is better than anything else we could find in the world. Just like any relationship, abiding requires time, specifically time with Christ. Just as each relationship is different person to person, each relationship with Christ will be different, but we each need to spend time talking to Christ and spend time listening to His words. As we continue to to look to Christ and understand His vast love for us, we will bear fruit for His glory. Abiding isn’t this super theological concept that’s hard to grasp. All it is is an intimate relationship with the Son of God.

Christ calls us to live in a special relationship with Him; one that looks like a Vine and a branch. What does it mean to live like a tree? It means to live rooted and grounded in Christ, our life. It means to live fueled by Christ’s life-giving sap. It means living fully dependent on the Vine, just like a branch. Abiding is not just something we must do, it’s a special intimate relationship with the Son of God. It’s our call to freedom. We’re no longer trapped in sin; we can have new, full, abundant life in Christ. Abiding is not just a command, it is our freedom. It is our life.

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