We Were Promised the Abiding Life – Is This All There Is?
Every believer comes to a place in their lives where they know they are missing something. It’s a bit hard to describe. I trust Jesus and His wonderful gift for my salvation. The fear of damnation has been removed. Perhaps I have even walked away from sins that I knew would displease God. So that’s what the Abiding in Christ is all about, right?
And yet, and yet, where is the joy? Where is the love in my cold heart? Why do I worry so much? Is this life any different from the life of any ‘unsaved’ person around me?
Andrew Murray starts his little book “Abide in Christ” saying,
And yet I fear that there are many who have indeed come to Jesus, and who yet have mournfully to confess that they know but little of this blessed abiding in Him.
Andrew Murray – Abide in Christ, Chapter 1
The blessings you once enjoyed were lost; the love and joy of your first meeting with your Saviour, instead of deepening, have become faint and feeble. And often you have wondered what the reason could be, that with such a Saviour, so mighty and so loving, your experience of salvation should not have been a fuller one. The answer is very simple. You wandered from Him.
Andrew Murray – Abide in Christ, Chapter 1
Since this yearning for something deeper is a common feature of the Christian life, we can hope that there is a satisfaction to that desire somewhere. Perhaps we are just missing it. God created thirst, and gave us water. He created hunger, and gave us food.
In the same way, He gives us a hunger and thirst for Himself. And then He provides the Bread and Water of Life. Jesus replied to the tempter by quoting scripture:
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word the proceeds from the Mouth of God”
Matthew 4:4 (NIV)
And so, if we are hungry, we need to take in the Word of God. I spent several months recently reading the Bible with a single question. “What is your requirement of me?” In this age of feel-good religion, we focus on the gifts of God. We focus on his forgiveness and grace. But we sometimes neglect to focus on God’s purpose. Why did He forgive us? What was He trying to accomplish? Reading through the Word made that abundantly clear.
The Deeper Blessings of God Depend on Obedience.
The first thing we notice reading through the Old Testament is how much God desired obedience to Him. For example, as God commissioned Joshua to lead the people, His instructions were quite precise. Joshua’s success as a leader was based on his obedience to the Laws given to Moses.
7 “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.
Joshua 1:7 (NIV) – (See also Leviticus 26:3-5)
All the way through the Old Testament we see the people wander off to worship idols and follow the practices of the nations around them. The idols, of course, were just wood and clay. But the thing you worship becomes the thing you trust. The commands to love God and your neighbor changed to attitudes of selfishness, striving, corruption, and all kinds of evil.
Over and over, God rebuked them and brought them back, only to have them wander off again.
Jesus Did Not Reverse the Demand for Obedience
Sometimes we imagine that we no longer live under the laws of the Old Testament. Somehow, when Jesus came, all of that ‘law’ stuff just disappeared. As my pastor reminded us last week, sometimes we settle into “law is bad, grace is good”. But that is not what Jesus said, and it is not found anywhere in the New Testament. Instead we hear Jesus praising the law and requiring that we obey it.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:17-19 (NIV)
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 7:21 (ESV)
Notice here that Jesus is not setting aside the law. In fact he associates our entry into the Kingdom of heaven as depending on our obedience. Now don’t walk away from me yet, there is more to the story of course. But Jesus is NOT setting aside the commands that God the Father spent a thousand years teaching to the people of Israel.
We Must Exceed the Laws of the Parisees
In fact, He summarized and elevated the Jews’ understanding of the Law. The Law requires completely sold-out love to the Father. It also requires love for our neighbor that matches our love for ourselves. This kind of law is impossible to obey in our independent, self-focussed lives.
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Mark 12:29-31(NIV) – see also Deuteronomy 6:4-5, Leviticus 19:18, Luke 11:28, Matthew 28:20
Obedience is Hard
The Jews who lived before Jesus came had a really hard time obeying. And in general, they failed miserably.
5 Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees!
Psalms 119:5 (NIV)
The Old Testament is filled with stories of disobedient kings and people wandering off to do their own thing. In God’s love and patience, He kept disciplining them, and then drawing them back. It seemed like an endless cycle. The Father knew that people, left to their own inclinations would wander away. They would lose the sense of the sacred. They would follow their own paths. So through the prophets He taught us to expect a change.
Beginning in Genesis, God the Father taught us the law and why it mattered. Next, He spent several generations demonstrating our need for a different approach. So when he started telling the prophets that he would send His Spirit to be our connection to Him, they were ready for the message. Our obedience would be made possible, by being filled with His Spirit. We would not be struggling alone.
‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness.
Ezekiel 36:24-29 (NIV)
Justified by Faith – The Beginning of Abiding in Christ
So now, in the New Covenant, we see clearly things that were only hinted at in the Old Covenant. 1) Obedience is central to walking with God. 2) We cannot obey. 3) The Father provides the path through the Son’s forgiveness and the Spirit’s power.
We know that our faith in Jesus’ death on the cross is how we are “justified”. We are now allowed to enter the courtyard of the King without the stain of sin. The theology of how we are saved is too much for this article. But we understand that salvation is the first key to our new life. Salvation gets us through the gate and onto the path. And salvation is by faith alone.
28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
Romans 3:28(NIV)
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
Ephesians 2:8
Growing in Faith – The Lifestyle of Abiding in Christ
But we don’t want to stand at the beginning of the path. We want to walk with Jesus. We want to be part of the active thriving life He has promised us. That is also a walk of faith. It is a faith that causes obedience. Our faith in Christ as Savior grows into a faith in the Spirit as Guide. The Joyful, exuberant, powerful life in Christ is a walk of faith.
Obedience is no longer that painful giving up of the things we love. Instead it is a lifestyle of choosing the beauty of holiness over the ugliness of a life destroyed by sin.
13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
Romans 2:13
6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.
1 John 1:6 (see also James 2:14-19)
Again, Andrew Murray makes it more clear.
They are very zealous for a free gospel, with our first acceptance of Christ, and justification by faith alone. But after this they think everything depends on our diligence and faithfulness. While they firmly grasp the truth, “The sinner shall be justified by faith,” they have hardly found a place in their scheme for the larger truth, “The just shall live by faith.” (Abide, ch3)
Andrew Murray – Abide in Christ – Chapter 3
So this is the key to the mystery of abiding in Christ. We receive His power to live this amazing life by faith in His Spirit working in us. At first the faith is feeble, and the flow is a trickle. But our faith grows if we tend it, pray for it, and live in it daily. The faith grows, and the trickle becomes a steady flow of life giving power into our lives.
4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:3-5 (NIV)
“Come unto me, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; and ye shall find rest to your souls”
Matthew 11:28-29 (NIV)
What is the Lifestyle of Abiding in Christ
If we want the life that Jesus promised, not just in heaven but here on earth, we need to walk very closely with Him. Each day is a day of faith. We ask for God’s power, wisdom, love and so much more. And the Spirit provides what we ask. This is the path we walk, day by day. There is no abundant life, without an abundant walk with our Savior and Friend. If we choose to wander away, we should not be surprised if He does not wander with us!
It is the faith in what Christ is, more than anything else, that will keep you abiding in Him. A soul filled with large thoughts of the Vine will be a strong branch, and will abide confidently in Him. Be much occupied with Jesus, and believe much in Him, as the True Vine.
Andrew Murray – Abide in Christ – Chapter 3
