When I read this
verse, the word that jumps out at me is remain.
Jesus said that in order for Him to remain in us, we must remain in
Him. I know there are different
understandings of what this is saying, but taken at face value the message
seems to be very clear. We must remain
in Christ.
Why would Jesus
command us to remain in Him if there wasn't a possibility that we might not? Staying in Christ is a decision we must make
daily in our lives. We must knowingly
choose to live in relationship with Him.
We must strive to live lives that are pleasing to Him. We must understand that apart from Him we are
spiritually dead. We cannot remain in
fellowship with Him on our own. Without
a heart connection with Christ we will stumble and fall into sin.
Apart from Christ, we
cannot produce anything good; we cannot do anything that is pleasing and
acceptable to God. Apart from Christ, we
will produce no spiritual fruit. Period. We will produce fruit if we are living in
Christ and if we aren't living in Christ we will be rejected by God.
In order for us to
remain in Christ, we must feed our souls consistently with the Word of God and
spend time alone with Him in prayer. We
must be worshipers of Him and we must be servants of Him. We must strive to apply to our living what we
learn from Him. We must desire Him more
than anything else in our lives.
Wandering away from
Christ is easy. It comes naturally for
us. Remaining in Christ requires much
work from us. It is a daily discipline
we must do if we want to have life in Christ and to have it more abundantly.
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