Abide

John 15:4 ASV “Abide in me, and I in you.”

Abide is most definitely not a word we use frequently today. When’s the last time you heard someone say, “I’ll just abide here until you get back.” Probably, the best contemporary substitute in English is stay, so this verse could read, “Stay in me and I in you.” Other translations use the words remain or dwell.

The point I want to focus on, however, is how crucial this concept is. John uses the word 60 times in this book and 10 times in this chapter. The idea of staying or dwelling in somebody (versus with or next to somebody) is a spiritual concept. It isn’t something we can physically see, yet experientially, it is possible to be “in” Christ and He “in” us.

John records other references to abiding in this chapter that help to define this supernatural notion. In verse 7, Jesus relates abiding in him to allowing his words (scripture) to abide in us. In verse 9, Jesus says to abide in his love. In another book John wrote, he says whoever keeps God’s commands abides in him and also explains that we can know he abides in us because of the Holy Spirit (1 John 3:24).

I can say without a doubt this indwelling experience of Christ in me and I in him, however mystical it may seem, is a reality in my life. I wanted to challenge myself to depict the epitome of what this condition feels like.

That is not to say that every moment of every day is a blissful, light-filled existence of flowers and rest and ocean waves lapping against the sand. That isn’t the world I live in. But there are instances of this, and those times do two things: They sustain me in the dark and silent times and leave me thirsting for more of Jesus.