November 01

“Abide in Me” (John 15:4).

The only place that we can have life in this world is in the conscious and continuous presence of Christ; if we are living our life outside the reality of that intimacy with Him, then we are living in death. Life is in Him and only in Him; so John tells us (John 1:4).

All of us have occasions when we are consumed with a zeal for God that can only come from the Holy Spirit calling us back to Him; for a day or two, maybe a week or two, we walk in the True Light, filled with joy and delight at His presence; our spirits are thrillingly alive!

Then something happens; and it is this. We are flesh as well as spirit and when our spirit, refreshed and filled with zeal by the Holy Spirit, takes control of our soul, the flesh doesn’t like it. All our lives, until conversion to Christ, our fleshly nature has been in charge of our soul; suddenly, an intruder is introduced into these comfortable arrangements; suddenly, there is competition for control of our soul; the new man versus the old man.

We learn that we are to abide in Christ, but our flesh resists giving up the authority it has always had and giving it over to a stranger; inner conflict is the result as the battle is joined between the Adam in me and the Christ in me. Three things can happen to resolve the situation.

1. We can give Christ away altogether; it’s too hard and no-one can do what he is asked to do. It’s unnatural!
2. We can negotiate and devise a compromise between the warring parties; in fact, if we look around us, we will find that everyone else is doing just that. No-one is actually abiding in Christ; everyone seems to be happy being converted, being a Christian and having a friend like Jesus, who died for us, loves us and wants nothing but the best for us. We don’t need to be extremists or fanatics or fundamentalists; just Christians, like everybody else. We shouldn’t have to stand out from the crowd. We can still enjoy “life”! So we embrace a doctrine, which the spirit of anti-Christ readily supplies, reflecting this negotiated peace between the flesh and the spirit. This doctrine in turn, makes room for the spirit of the world to bring us some pleasures of this life, riches, status and just “fun”!
3. Alternatively, we can take God at His word and decide that yes, we are truly meant to abide in Christ; that is, to live at all times in His presence, conscious always of His being with us and in us, aware and involved in everything we think, say and do. Such a response presents us with a challenge; something has to give; the flesh, with its worldly lusts and carnality must be subdued by the spirit ; there is no other way, for the flesh left to its own devices will inevitable re-assert the dominion that it has exercised since birth.

These alternatives are those Jesus spoke of in the Parable of Sower; the soils reflect three different types of hearts of men; the first didn’t receive the Word; the second did, but found it all too hard; the third received the Word and went forth, but the fleshly things weren’t dealt with; whereas, the fourth was the only one who came to “abide in Christ”.

Another way of putting this is that the first “comes”, the second “follows” and the third “abides”; these reflect the three levels of engagement with God that are available to man.