What does it mean to "abide"? Part 3

John 15:7 - If you abide in Me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.

Abiding. We have already discussed that it is less about obeying His rules and more about remaining in the position of His love and grace. More about dwelling close to His side than striving for perfection.

My “life hacks”for abiding:

  1. Rehearse the Truth

  2. Remember His love

We saw last week that “rehearse the Truth” means that I speak TRUTH to myself and to the Father. I hope you’ve had the chance already to put that into practice.

Now:

Remember His Love

Seems like a no-brainer, right? Such a “Sunday School answer”, too - remember His love. I know. But hear me out. After walking with Him for nearly half a century (yes I am OLD), it never ceases to amaze me how easily I can forget His love. Oh, I can still quote it with the best of them. I can still say Yes I know Jesus loves me. But in a practical, tangible sense, I often walk around as though this is not the bedrock truth of my faith!

My “forgetting” that He loves me looks something like this: Sure, I know He CAN do all those wonderful things. But will He do that for ME? Or - I know, I know. He loves me because He has to. It’s pretty much His job description.

Those kinds of thoughts are NOT abiding! And they result in feelings of insecurity, anxiety, fear, jealousy, selfishness, performance-based actions, anger, and the like. Those types of thoughts short-circuit the fruit that comes from abiding: joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control (un-selfcenteredness).

Ok, then, what does it look like to “remember His love”?

Two things (of course!) 1)Experience His Love 2)Share His Love

For an explanation of these concepts, let’s look at Ephesians 3:16-19 “..that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through HIs Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.

First, we need to focus on experiencing His love. This is not limited to the salvation experience - that is only the beginning. Notice that Paul is writing here to believers - those who are already “rooted and grounded in love”. They are already “saved” so they have already experienced His love, right? Well, not exactly. The thrust of this passage is that Paul is praying for those who already know Him to experience His love - to be able to comprehend that which is actually beyond comprehension! To “know” - in other words experience - over and over and over in an intimate way what it means to be loved by Him. Sort of like getting married: the wedding is when you initially experience the depth of that love but through the years of being married, you experience it more and more fully, continually again and again. For me, this means repeating the truth of His lovingkindness from Scripture to myself on a regular basis. Recently, a dear friend and I committed to text such verses to one another daily so we could help each other out of a spiritual slump. (Guess what - it worked wonders! Sort of combining both principles: rehearse the truth and remember His love!) I also reflect on something Jesus spoke to my heart many decades ago when I was in a place of reeling from a rejection that catapulted my heart into a fragile place for months. My conversation with myself was going something like this: “I know God loves me. I know His Word says He does. But I don’t feel like it right now. Plus, He loves me because He has to. It’s His job description. He is GOD! He loves me because He made me. Ok, I will keep telling myself that”. But I was stuck in that pit until I heard Him say to my heart - “I don’t love you because I made you. I MADE YOU BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!!!!”

Do you get the difference that makes? I was no longer an obligation - I was a delight! It PLEASED Him to conceive the very thought of me and because that pleased Him, He brought me into existence. Yes, He is completely aware of my sin and my flaws and my quirks. He knows I am helpless and needy. YET, my existence brings Him joy. He made me BECAUSE HE LOVED THE IDEA OF ME!

Maybe it is just words to you but that changeup made all the difference to me. I began to experience His love, and oh, how sweet it is! Now I relish reminding myself continuously of His marvelous love!

But He doesn’t leave us there. He loves us to much to let us just focus on ourselves. If we did, that would be eventually be a recipe for disaster. So He instructs us right there in that Ephesians 3 passage how else to remember His love; “together with all the saints”! Yes, in order to victoriously remember His love, we must do more than experience it - we must share it! And what joy that brings!

He has wired us to do exactly that. He commands us to love one another. He equipped us with individual giftings so we could do that. And He completes our joy in the act of doing so. Sharing His love includes sharing the Gospel but that is definitely not the extent of it. Sharing His love is the spillover of His love through our gifts, talents, resources, and passions. It might be a birthday card to one who might feel forgotten. It might be a meal to a busy Mom. Or it could be a financial gift to a struggling college student. Or a song in the night to a feverish toddler. It sometimes looks like a response of kindness when anger is expected…even warranted. Or presence at a funeral when doing so is costly and inconvenient. Or initiating reconciliation when it feels too hard or even unfair.

Sharing His love is about a zillion things - He presents opportunities to us a bazillion times in a gazillion different ways. We just have to ask for His heart to notice them and for His grace to follow through.

To sum up these posts on abiding, let’s close by one more look at the passage we began with - John 15:7 - If you abide in Me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you.

If we “abide in Me” - that’s remembering His Love - and “My words abide in you” - that’s rehearsing the Truth - then we can ask whatever we wish and subsequently receive that because that abiding in Him and His Words abiding in us transforms us. Such abiding changes our desires to be in line with the God-glorifying, fruit-bearing, Christ-exalting, love of Jesus. And we will want what He wants. So, we can confidently ask whatever we wish and, indeed, it shall be done!