ABIDE IN ME

John 15:4 Abide in me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me.

To abide in Him is to be vitally united with Him.  We are connected.  It’s like when you see a semi on the road; the tractor, the engine, and steering wheel are in the front and the trailer with the cargo is in the back. You have never seen a trailer without a tractor, the steering wheel, the driver, and the engine.  Yet so many people who are Christians, on their way to Heaven when they die, are living a life of a trailer going down the highway aimlessly.  That is dangerous in the natural and even more dangerous in the realm of the spirit.  We must abide in Him.  

How can we tell if we are abiding in Him?  In 1 John 2:6, it says if we abide in Him, we ought to walk as He walked.  And it is not hard to see who is really abiding in Him.  In John 15:7, Jesus said if my words abide in you, you can ask what you will.  You can tell if someone is abiding in Him by their Word level, by what they are asking for when they pray.  As a born-again believer, He lives in us.  He made us new creations; our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, but are we abiding in Him?  It is identifiable.  

One way to tell if we are abiding in Him is that we are producing in our lives.  We are producing fruit.  What kind of fruit?  This is not directly talking about the fruit of the spirit, which we should be growing every day.  In context, it is talking about bearing the fruit of answered prayer (John 15:7-9).  Also, the fruit that Jesus produced on the Earth should be expected by every believer who is truly abiding in Him.  If you planted an apple seed, you would not be expecting oranges, would you?  Since we are abiding in Him and His Word is abiding in us, we should expect what He told us in John 14:12, that the works or the fruit of His ministry is to go and do also with even greater fruit.  I know it seems too much!  How can one little apple seed be responsible for a tree that one day produces hundreds of apples?  All I can say is, it does.  And by the way, those apples have seeds in them to keep the cycle going.  So are we His seed, and we are to keep the fruit coming!  

The only way to produce the fruit that we are supposed to produce is by abiding in Him. If you are a branch who gets disconnected from the vine, you will cease from producing fruit.  We need to spend our life making sure that we are connected to the giver of life, the vine.  When we do, we will produce much fruit, the same kind of fruit that Jesus produced.  Abide in the vine!