John 15:7. It is quite a familiar verse. If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it shall be done for you.
It is very appealing to think this is kind of a cosmic carte blanche wish list - ask and you shall receive! Whatever you want! We can easily find ourselves making out a wish list, right? And maybe we are even “mature” enough to put lots of “right things” on the list. Things that sound good and maybe offset the “less unselfish” things we might long for.
When all along, we wonder - what’s the catch? How do we figure out the “abide” thing so we can skip right on to getting what we want?
Well, I don’t have all the answers on how we get all we want. But I do have some thoughts on what it means to abide. For the next couple of posts, we will look at what I think Jesus means when He tells us this just hours before He faces the Cross.
For now, I will say that perhaps the focus isn’t so much on getting all we want but rather transforming what we want.
Let’s start unpacking…
The word “abide” shows up lots in the New Testament. Especially in John. In some places in Scripture, the word we translate as “abide” or “keep” is the Greek word tereo and it connotes the idea of obedience. Sometimes in English we communicate this , such as “abiding by the agreement”. That can make us think that Jesus is telling us in John 15:10 that we can cash in on our wish list if we keep our side of the deal by perfect obedience.
Wow that is overwhelming!
Thankfully, that is not the accurate picture!
The Greek word Jesus uses in John is not tereo but rather meno. Which conveys a much different message! Meno means to dwell, to remain, to stay in the same place through struggle and difficulty, to persevere without changing position. Much different message indeed!
So now we better understand what it means..but how do we do that? Practically?
Stay tuned for next week’s post….