Many Christians are not aware of the closeness of union, intimacy of fellowship, and the oneness of life to which God calls us with the words “Abide in me. Remain in me.”
First, we respond to Christ’s call to follow Him—as the lost sheep responding to the voice of the Good Shepherd (Matthew 11:28). Then He calls again: Abide in me and I in you. (John 15:4)
“He destined you to something better than a short-lived blessing, to be enjoyed only in times of special earnestness and prayer, and then to pass away as you return to the more mundane duties of life.” —Andrew Murray
He calls us to enjoy matchless, unbroken communion with Him. He calls us to abide.
Abiding in Christ is not some unreachable, ambiguous state only achievable by monks in an abbey who still speak old English amongst themselves. Abiding in Christ is simply living in union with Him, experiencing His daily and hourly presence and keeping. It is the mystery of the perfect union between Christ and the believer.
Yet the grace to come and the grace to abide are both from Him alone.
Beware of any message that emphasizes a formula of faith plus effort. This is heresy, pure and simple. Abiding is required for a healthy Christian life, therefore the grace to do so is provided by Christ.
Abiding is simply weakness entrusting itself The God Who Keeps Us, the unfaithful one casting itself on The God Who Is Trustworthy And True. It is consenting to let Him do all for us, in us, and through us. It is waiting for what He has promised in quiet expectation and confidence, resting on the word of Christ that in Him there is an abiding place prepared for you.
“Come...let us set ourselves in quiet trust before Him, waiting to hear His holy voice… breathing its life-giving spirit within us as He speaks: ‘Abide in Me.’ The soul that hears Jesus himself speak the word receives with the word the power to accept and to hold the blessing He offers.”
—Andrew Murray
Abiding takes time—just like everything God gives us—it must be embraced, appropriated, and assimilated into our soul. But the grace to do so comes from Christ. It requires day-by-day time with Jesus and the Father—feeding on Him—before reading His word, while reading His word, and after reading His word, to be in contact with the living Jesus. But we rest because this habit of feeding and the hunger it awakens also comes from Christ.
It comes by cultivating a trustful disposition toward God, the habit of always thinking of Him, of His ways and His works, with confidence and hope. “In such soil alone can individual promises take root and grow.” (A. Murray) This fertile soil of the heart comes from surrender to Christ. It is only as we daily come, empty and helpless, to our Savior to receive His life and strength, that He can bring forth such fruit of righteousness.
And we are told in John 15 that it is actually the yoke of Christ itself that accomplishes the surrender because the moment the soul yields itself to obey, the Lord himself gives the strength and joy to do so. Abiding in Christ is nothing but the giving up of oneself to be ruled, taught, and led, enabling the disciple to rest in the arms of Everlasting Love—deep rest which comes from abiding, in close fellowship and absolute surrender.
We rest because the rest is in Christ, not something He gives apart from himself, and so it is only in Him that the rest can really be kept and enjoyed. It is the yoke of Christ itself that gives rest, because the moment the soul yields itself to obey, the Lord himself gives the strength and joy to do so.
Abiding in Christ is meant for the weak and is beautifully suited to our frailty.
Grace accomplishes our rest.
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For an in-depth study on abiding in Christ, read Andrew Murray's book by the same title. I have read and re-read Andrew Murray so many times that if I have borrowed from him too liberally, please forgive me—his writings have impacted me over the years more than any other.