Are You Abiding in Jesus?

by Matthew Chapman

 

 

Jesus minced no words here in communicating to us the importance of abiding in Him. Speaking to disciples-those who have already "given up all their own possessions" to follow Him and who "hate" every earthly relation and even their own life in deference to Him (Luke 14:25-35)-He made it very clear that apart from abiding in Him, we can bear no fruit in and of ourselves, nor can we do anything of eternal value and worth. He also warns we "branches" that there are consequences we will face if we fail to learn to abide in Him.

It's good that we know this and tremble with a healthy and clean fear of the Lord. But of equally great importance is that we take in His invitation-His warm, open-armed, welcoming call for us to abide in Him. Remember, the disciples He was speaking to then, and consequently the ones He IS speaking to today, are those whom He loves just as the Father has loved Him (v. 9), whom He calls His friends (vv. 13-15), and with whom He wants to share the fullness of His joy and peace (v. 11; 14:27).

Gleaning from this context, we need to see and hear Him say, "Abide in Me," with a soft and joyful smile, having an eager and intent gleam in His eyes, and a purposed yet altogether peaceful countenance. Hearing Him, we need to respond by entering His kingdom as children, learning to continue along with Him in our moments (Matt. 18:3, John 3:3-8).

How about you, are you abiding in Jesus right now? Are you aware of when you are and when you are not abiding in Him? Is the matter of abiding in Christ as centrally important to you as He made it out to be in this John 15 passage? Do you even think about abiding during the course of a normal day? If you are like many Christians today, you are reluctant to answer these questions because you are not fully confident in knowing what it means to abide in Him. The very fact that this is your initial response makes you doubtful that you do abide in Him on a consistent basis.

What does it mean to abide in Jesus?

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels." (2 Cor. 4:7)
In learning to abide in Jesus, you have to become able to clearly discern the difference between "this treasure" and the "earthen vessel." First, let's get to know "this treasure." Who we really are is a spiritual being. Even though we each live and make choices and experience life as "a package" that is made up of this spiritual being and our physical body in which he resides, the person we really are is the spiritual being. This reality is borne out every time we attend a funeral. In seeing the lifeless physical body of our loved one, we are keenly aware that it is now an empty shell, for, as the scriptures teach, the spiritual being who once lived inside that body has departed to another place (James 2:26, et al.). Well, it is this "spiritual being" who becomes a treasure to the Lord when we are born of His Spirit.

Before the new birth, our spirit-man was dead. Yes, we, the spiritual being, had a form of eternal continuance (i.e., in our unsaved condition, we would have spent eternity in hell) but we were cut off from the life of God, "dead in our trespasses and sins," and "were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest" of sinful mankind (Eph. 2:1-3). But when we were born of the Spirit of God our spirit-man was completely transformed. We received "the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Christ Jesus our Savior" (Titus 3:3-8). God "delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son," making us "one spirit with Him" as well as "new creatures" in Christ from whom "the old things passed away" and "new things have come" (Col. 1:13, 1 Cor. 6:17, 2 Cor. 5:17). In Jesus, we became a "new man, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth" (Eph. 4:24).

In embracing the present realities of the spiritual being that we now are by virtue of the new birth, it is important that we believe the Spirit-inspired verb tenses of these scriptures (and so many others!)-these things are true of us in Jesus right now! In fact, Paul said that "in Him, you have been made complete" (Col. 2:10). Once again, notice the verb tense. The Greek word translated "have been made complete" (pepleromenoi) is in the perfect tense, which conveys past completed action that carries results up to the present time, and literally means we "have been finished and brought to completion" in Christ. In other words, there is nothing more that needs to be done for us, that is, this new spirit man! Because we are finished and complete due to what Jesus accomplished through His death and resurrection, He sat down at the right hand of God and is not laboring to accomplish more on our behalf (Heb. 1:3, 10:12, 12:1-2). In fact, "God. raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:4-7). Again, notice the verb tenses: "raised," "seated." These are things He has already done with us! Do you believe Him?

My point in highlighting these scriptures is to hopefully help you get (or deepen) the revelation that who you are-the spiritual being that you are in Jesus-is truly complete in Him. Who we are in the spirit does not need to change, nor grow, nor be purified, etc. This is the "treasure" God sees! Thus, Jesus said:

Many Christians wrongly assume that this parable is Jesus referring to how we have to give up everything to follow Him. While it is certainly true that we do have to give up everything to be a disciple and follow Jesus (Luke 14:25-35), this is not the particualr truth that this parable is referring to. Remember, parables contain a hidden truth whose meaning is not immediately obvious. Jesus had already revealed (earlier in this same chapter of Matthew 13) that the reference to "a man" refers to Him (v. 24, 37), and that "the field is the world" (v. 38).

So what is He saying through this parable about the treasure?! When He looked at the world and saw the treasure that was hidden in it, it was worth it to Him to joyfully give up all that He had and buy the whole entire world just so He could have the treasure it concealed! Is this not what Jesus did when He "emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and. humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" in order to pay for the sins of "the whole world" (1 John 2:1-2, Rom. 5:18 , 2 Cor. 5:14-15, Heb. 10:10-18, et al.)?! He took on the sin of all mankind just so that out of the billions who would reject Him while passing through this earth in the annals of time, He could have the "treasure," the countless relative few who would receive Him and love Him (Eph. 5:25, Heb. 12:2, Rev. 19:5-9). So, individually, "we have this treasure in earthen vessels"-we are "one spirit with Him" (1 Cor. 6:17), complete in Jesus in our spirit-man. And collectively, the saints from throughout the ages are the bride of Christ, the sum total of the "treasure hidden in the field" who was "the joy set before Him" for whom He endured the cross (Heb. 12:1-2). Hallelujah!

But there's another part to this equation and that is where the "earthen vessel" comes in. Seeing it accurately is pretty easy because it requires no faith to see and believe like it does the unseen reality of who we are in spirit. Think about it: when we were born of the Spirit of God, our physical body, in which the treasure resides, was not made a new creature in Christ. It remains under "the sentence of death," is aging and decaying, and will one day either die or be transformed at His coming. So our flesh (body) remains the same after the new birth. But there is one gigantic difference: due to "the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit," the "old man" no longer inhabits the earthen vessel because the new man we now are in Jesus is here instead (Rom. 6:3-11).

So here's the bad news: the earthen vessel, which includes our brain, was thoroughly programmed to compute and act upon conclusions and impulses that lead to sin and death. This is because the master programmer of the vessel was the old sinful man before he was regenerated in Jesus. This is also why we sin when we walk according to the earthen vessel when it acts independently of and contrary to God. This too is what the scriptures refer to as "the flesh." Notice how the following scriptures portray the flesh, and also notice how it contrasts the flesh with who we are in Christ in the Spirit:

According to these and many other scriptures, our flesh is entirely incorrigible. In and of ourselves, that is, our flesh, we cannot bear the fruit of the Spirit or manufacture "the fragrance of Christ" in our lives. At best, the flesh can attempt to fulfill the law, which, in every endeavor, always ends in sin and failure (which is why the Lord gave the law in the first place-to show us our sin and need for a Savior! Rom. 7:12-14, Gal. 3:21-29). Our flesh cannot be righteous before the Lord, and it cannot be rehabilitated. It does a fine job as a human body for around 80 years if we take decent care of it and if the Lord wills that we live that long, but it fails miserably when it tries to please God or act like a son of God (always an exercise in SELF-accomplishment and SELF-exaltation), and even worse when we yield altogether to its base and lawless passions and desires. Nothing good dwells in our flesh; it "sets its desire against the Spirit," and when we set our mind on it, we join in its hostility toward God, and we experience death and not "abundant life" when walking according to it.

The Place of Abiding
So, bringing this all together, here's what we have: We have a spirit-man who is complete in Jesus and DOES NOT need to change, AND we have flesh that, acting in and of itself, is hostile toward God, opposes the Spirit, is altogether programmed for sin and death, and CANNOT change. What do we do?! Few of us need convincing about the wickedness of the flesh (though many lack a sober appreciation for just how wicked theirs is/can be), and yet we all sense a deep need to change and to grow, and yet here I am saying that our spirit-man is complete and doesn't need to change, and yet "we all stumble in many ways" (James 3:2) and blow it all the time, SO WHAT'S THE DEAL?!! Why then do we have this overwhelming desire to change and to grow? And just what exactly is it that needs to change and to grow in us?

The answer? OUR CAPACITY for abiding in Jesus in our daily walk NEEDS TO ENLARGE. You see, because we have been born of the Spirit, we now have this "new creature" living inside of our body who "has been made complete" in Jesus and is "one spirit with Him." This "new man" longs to express the life of God through our earthen vessel and out into our daily life and choices. But, starting out, our capacity for walking in this new reality in Christ is very small, whereas our capacity for walking according to the flesh, according to who we used to be (the old man), remains huge. This is why especially so many new believers (and tragically many of us older Christians as well) feel stuck in a "Romans 7 existence." We know we have been genuinely born again and we sincerely want to please the Lord, and yet we keep stumbling and falling into our old sinful habits, our preferences, our ways, our understanding, our judgments and evaluations of things, our independence, our lusts, our fears, our, our, our (Rom. 7:14-25). But the thing we must realize is that now there is one glorious difference: the old man is no longer there, just the habits, patterns, ways, and lies he left behind in our flesh. So the issue at hand is for us to enlarge our capacity for spending more and more of our life continuing in Jesus and His finished work and, conversely, less and less of our time walking according to the flesh.

You see, at any given moment, we all have our heart yielded one way or the other-either to our flesh or to Jesus with Whom we are "one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17). This is why sometimes we experience our heart being "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," and yet at other times our heart is overflowing with "righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" and we can tell that we have "sanctified Christ as Lord in our hearts" (Jer. 17:9, Rom. 14:17 , 1 Pet. 3:15). Our heart is continually filled with one or the other depending on where we are yielding it-either Jesus and His finished work in us or the flesh-and we will speak and choose and act out of what is filling us (Matt. 12:33-35).

These realities in Christ are why Romans 6 declares that:

  (1) The "old man was crucified with [Jesus] in order that."

  (2) "our body of sin (i.e., the old man himself) might be made powerless." so that

  (3) "we should no longer be slaves to sin;" and thus now,

  (4) "having been freed from sin" and made "slaves of righteousness," we should, as such,

  (5) "present ourselves as slaves to righteousness resulting in sanctification" rather than presenting ourselves to "sin resulting in death."

When, as a branch, we simply let go, yield, and present ourselves to the life of Jesus and continue with Him by the Holy Spirit, His life flows through us and the fruit of the Spirit is effortlessly borne in our lives. The struggle within us is in our letting go and yielding to Him on a continual basis while denying provision for our flesh (Rom. 13:14), not in producing the fruit. The fruit of the Spirit is simply a result of having yielded to Him. So enlarging our capacity for abiding in Jesus is a matter of our becoming increasingly aware of where our heart is yielded, and deliberately, consciously, and continually letting go to Him who is in us by faith.

It is also critical to know that abiding is always right now, in our moments. Jesus said that "everyone who is born of the Spirit" is like "the wind" that "blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going" (John 3:8). You cannot store up wind, can you? You can only flow with it right now. If I took a box out on a windy day, held it open, let the wind blow into it, put the lid on the box and sealed it tightly, and then opened it later, would wind blow out of the box? Of course not, because that is not the nature of the wind. Neither is it the nature of the Spirit and our abiding in Jesus. We can only yield to Him in this moment right now. and then again in this moment, right now. and then again in this moment, right now. and then again in this moment, right now. We cannot change the past and we have no control over the future, but do we have right now to yield to the Life of God within us by faith (Gal. 2:20 , et al.).

As with everything in God, if we are faithful with little, He will give us more (Matt. 25:21, Luke 16:10). As I mentioned earlier, when we first begin our walk with God, our capacity for abiding in Jesus and His finished work is very small-like one of those tiny plastic communion cups you've seen. We don't go for long before we get tripped up and entangled in the flesh, and then, typically, bogged down in guilt and condemnation. The best thing we can do at that point is to yield afresh to Him and return to abiding. We may have to go through this scenario a million times a day, but as we are faithful to do so, the Lord will enlarge our capacity for continuing in Him. That little plastic communion cup will become, as it were, a drinking glass, and then a quart jar, and then a gallon pitcher, and then a bucket, and then a barrel, and then, in time, as Jesus said, "from [our] innermost being shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:37-39).

When we begin our race, the Lord knows we are immature in our ability to recognize the need to yield to Him in our every moment and circumstance. Many times we have trouble differentiating between flesh and who we are in the Spirit, and we can wrongly begin thinking that who we really are IS the flesh. This is typically due to discouragement from seeing so much junk in our hearts and lives. But be encouraged! The reason you are even sensitized to seeing all of that junk and desire so strongly to purge it from your walk is because it is "God who is at work in you, both to will and to do for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13). He does not despise us for our weakness, but rather has "lavish ed His grace upon us," enabling us to persevere, continue, and overcome in His strength. So, when we find ourselves not abiding in Him, we need to immediately stop what we're doing, turn (repent), and yield to Him afresh. We can learn from where we missed it, but we don't need to analyze to death what happened and take some sort of guilt offering to the Lord. What pleases the Lord and honors Him for the price He paid for us is our believing and trusting in who He is and all that He has accomplished, and our continuing in the Spirit with Him (Heb. 11:6 Rom. 8:1-8). So yield afresh to Him and go forward. It's a moment-by-moment choice.

As we learn and grow in our capacity to abide in our Lord and what is finished in Him, we will see our walk transformed, our faith increased, and confidence we have in our flesh on the decline. Know for certain that He will bring about, use, and work through all sorts of situations, including those that contain pain, heartache, disappointment, temptations, injustices, hardships, etc., because He wants to establish His unshakeable kingdom in our lives to the point that, in Him, we are unshakeable in our walk in Him. This is the wonderful rest we have in Jesus as well as the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. What's being sanctified (set apart) is our walk, the life we are living. What is growing and enlarging is our capacity for abiding in Jesus. And the rest is in the knowing that what makes all this come to pass is our continual yielding to what is finished and already true in Jesus.

What a wonderful, patient, generous Lord we have! What a great salvation! Oh saints, let's not "neglect so great a salvation." Instead, let's honor the Lord by abiding in Him and taking full advantage of what He has accomplished!

 

 

 

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