Abiding in Christ
+ Our role in the advancing kingdom of heaven begins with understanding that our being precedes our doing. Our ongoing relationship with Him is designed to reveal to us the fullness of God we already have in Christ.
The Cross is a revelation of mankind’s righteousness through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Having been totally set free from the law of sin and death, we now live in spiritual unity with our Father through the person of Jesus Christ. We live in and experience everlasting life through the faith of Jesus: what Christ accomplished on our behalf, what He believes about mankind, and the ramifications of His resurrection and ascension into heaven.
The key to remember is that there is nothing in our humanity that we can do to reach God; He came to us as Jesus Christ. Any religion or framework of belief that focuses on human works or action to reach God opposes the work of Jesus on our behalf. At the same time, there are clear biblical principles about reaping and sowing to the Kingdom. Where does our responsibility lie? Let’s examine this and step into the revelation that abiding in Christ is a whole lot easier than we could have imagined, bearing extraordinary fruit beyond our wildest dreams.
Ever get frustrated, envious, or jealous when a brother or sister you know seems to really be enjoying their experience of Jesus? I’m talking about the people who never seem to be in a bad mood, post frequently on social media about God, and roll in the aisles on Sunday morning. Part of us sees and admires this kind of faith. The other part draws comparisons and makes a mental checklist of the reasons that could never be us. We reason that it will never be us, and settle for mediocre Christianity. Why does seeing these people bother us so much? The answer is a lack of knowing about our own identity in Christ. The reality is they are not any more qualified than you to enjoy in the heavenly gift. This freedom in the Spirit is possible for every believer. The difference lies in their understanding of Christ.
We live in a very performance-oriented culture. We derive our personal identity from our perceived impact on the world around us. Working hard enough will get you noticed. Getting noticed wins you influence and, maybe, a promotion. We love comparing our relative value to others’: their lives, their families, their accomplishments, etc. This is a spirit of pride masquerading as normative social behavior. Because our culture is soaked in this junk, we as Christians feel that it’s ok to play this game. It isn’t.
This fleshly (i.e. pre-Christ) mindset has infected our doctrine, our churches, and our faith. Spend more time reading the Bible and you’ll be closer to God! Hide in your prayer closet for an hour each day! Starve your body for 30 days and you’ll feel closer to God! Buy this book to learn how to be a prophet! Get your porn addiction under control and you’ll finally hear from the Lord! These are all fine ideas in and of themselves, but when they are not coupled with a spiritual understanding of Christ’s intimacy, they are worthless.
In God’s economy, being precedes doing. If you aren’t experiencing the fullness of joy from a relationship with Jesus, open your eyes to see yourself as He sees you. This understanding stimulates God’s fire within us. The more we see and believe how much He loves us, the more we will naturally and effortlessly pursue depth in our relationship with Him. You can’t “win” over Christ. In fact, you already have all of Him through the Presence of His indwelling Spirit. Opening our eyes to comprehend this reality is the key to abiding. When we learn how much He loves it, we can’t help but enjoy and pursue His Presence.
1 John 4:19 (NKJV) “We love Him because He first loved us.”
Can we take a moment to clarify what this kind of love looks like? This is God’s agape love; a love far beyond any human understanding. It is Divine, and utterly incomprehensible. A love that will, at any cost, pursue the lost and the broken. It is total pleasure taken in another. There are no conditions. We spend our lives trying to unwrap this divine reality through the lens of our warped and broken human experiences. We still project some of these human ideas about love onto our heavenly Father. We suspect He gets mad when we “mess up”, we invent distance between us and Him based on our “Christian” performance, or we refuse to talk to Him when we feel like He did us wrong. God wants us to discard these faulty ideas about His love in favor of what has been revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. The Cross is the greatest expression of love. It is God doing all of the work for us so that we can be restored to total and complete intimacy with him. Jesus did not come to start Christianity Incorporated; He came to totally restore mankind’s intimacy with the Father that was lost in the Garden.
Ever feel like you’re on a treadmill where you can’t get any closer to God’s manifest Presence? Frustrated that you aren’t experiencing joy or “pressing in” to more of what God has? Let’s think differently and sit in the reality that there is no separation between us and the Lord. Let’s examine how an embrace of being will always naturally precede a supernatural lifestyle set on fire for the Lord. Again, in God’s economy, revelation of being always precedes doing.
Our responsibility to abide begins with understanding that we are already spiritually united with Christ through the person of His Spirit. We have access to relationship with the same historical Jesus who walked the earth 2000 years ago. Christ’s desire is to have intimacy with His bride, not only at the end of all things, but in the here and now. We exist in Christ, and He in us. This is an incredible divine reality made possible through his Holy Spirit. As we rest in the faith of Jesus, we begin to experience the fruits of this relationship. We experience joy, peace, and supernatural manifestation.
John 14:19-21 (NKJV) “‘A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”
Colossians 1:27 (NKJV) “To them [His saints] God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Galatians 2:20 (KJV) “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Ephesians 2:6 (NIV) “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.”
All of this mystical language can start to sound really confusing, but what we need to understand right now is that we are spiritually united to Christ through the Spirit. We have the promise of intimacy with Him in the here and now. Because of His resurrection and ascension, we can enjoy the fruits of this divine relationship now. Who wouldn’t want to walk and talk with the Person who knows us better than we know ourselves? Once you begin to experience what this kind of walk with the Lord feels and looks like, you will become addicted to the presence of God.
Let’s take it a step further and have our minds blown: you already have all of Him. The purpose of this relationship is for Him to show you what you already have!
Colossians 2:9-10 (NIV) “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.”
The implications of fullness in Christ are staggering, and we will explore the concept of anointing later. God’s promises for the here and now are so much better than we could imagine. When we set aside fear and ask the Spirit to lead us, change happens and we experience breakthrough in our walk with the Lord. Remember: in God’s economy, being precedes doing. God is incredibly close to everyone. He is not hiding.
Acts 17:26-28 (NKJV) “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being…”
Paul’s theology here clearly contrasts with the Greek philosophers he is arguing with. To the Greeks (and many religious people today), God is a reality, but distant and aloof. To them, He created natural law and said “go.” The truth is He is closer than the air we breathe, intimately involved with every detail of our lives. He desires us to experience Him in a powerful and tangible way. He longs to move through us to shake earth and bring people to salvation.
I’ll never forget the first time I audibly heard the Spirit. I was going through a life-changing spiritual battle, totally overwhelmed by fear, anxiety, and torment. I had been sleeping with the light on next to my bed for months, unable to handle the unbearable unknown of the darkness. One particular night, I decided I was going to “do it on my own” and turn the light off. Immediately I was beset by panic. I began praying in the Spirit and focusing on the manifest Presence of the Lord. A supernatural peace and divine heaviness filled that place and I was able fall asleep. About two hours later, I woke up to the sound of a loud noise in my left ear. It sounded like someone ripped a piece of office paper near my ear to wake me up. I shot up, and was initially overwhelmed with terror. I examined that feeling and realized it was not a spiritual terror, but an awe and fear. Something was different. I was in the Lord’s manifest Presence. I asked Him, “Lord, what was that?” He responded with “that was the sound of the veil being torn. I wanted to remind you there’s no separation between me and you.”
The Spirit was referencing the veil in Solomon’s Temple that separated the Holy of Holies (God’s apparent dwelling place on Earth) from the rest of the temple where men dwelt. When Jesus died, the veil tore in two from top to bottom. The human heart and mind would now forever be God’s dwelling place. Recognition and acknowledgement of mankind’s spiritual unity with Him destroys any fear or attack from the enemy. This is not mere intellectual acceptance of a Christian doctrine. I am talking about knowing and experiencing Christ through the empowering presence of His Spirit. A revelation of who we already are in Him ignites a lifestyle. What we believe about our relationship with God will manifest in our thoughts. Thoughts manifest in action. This principal is all over the Bible, and it’s one of the reasons Paul is always talking about the renewal of the mind, understanding, wisdom, knowledge, etc.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV) “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
It is also why we are told again and again to guard our hearts, or our innermost being. Jesus came to destroy every satanic lie we would ever believe about ourselves. As the Incarnate Word, His life reveals what God thinks about His beloved children. He is not only an example for us, but He is an example of us. When we abide in His faith, He transforms us to see ourselves as He sees us. Solomon prophetically declares this love of God for His people in the Song of Solomon.
Song of Solomon 4:1-2 (NKJV) “Behold, you are fair, my love! Behold, you are fair! You have dove’s eyes behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats, Going down from Mount Gilead.”
Our Father gazes upon us with lavish, unconditional love. He sees the righteousness of His Son, and the purity of His Holy Spirit. As we walk hand in hand with Jesus, He gradually lifts the veil from our eyes: we are granted a progressive glimpse of His indescribable splendor and beauty.
Jesus himself gives very clear instructions on how to “abide” in John’s gospel. Let’s return to this famous passage and reframe it through a lens of Spiritual intimacy.
John 15:1-5 (NKJV) “‘I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
This paints a wonderful picture for us doesn’t it? The Lord is a happy gardener tending after his plants like they are his most prized possession. But then things suddenly intensify.
John 15:6-14 (NKJV) “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. As the Father loved Me, I also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command.”
For many believers, this passage like eating a bag of Sour Patch Kids: it’s an alternating mix of sweet and sour. It’s easy to read conditional love into the text with the amount of times we read the word “if.” But let’s look deeper at Jesus’ words, bearing in mind that love is never meant to be difficult, and Jesus intends to do most of the work for us.
“Abide” in this passage is the Greek word meno. In the Greek, this word implies to remain, to continue to be, to be held and kept continually, or to remain as one. As we learned previously, we have already been given spiritual unity with Christ and God. But what about Christ’s commandment to “love”? Again, this is the Greek word, agape. This is not mere love for our brothers and sisters, and it certainly doesn’t mean erotic love. This is the unconditional love of God flowing out of us naturally as a response to our abiding in supernatural relationship with the Lord through the Spirit. Jesus came to fulfill the law and present to us freedom of life in the Spirit. He is not speaking a new commandment or requirement for us to follow in order to acquire more affection from God.
If we try to love in our own strength, we will always fail. Think of that annoying person you secretly can’t stand at work. You keep your conversation limited, gossip about them behind their back, and generally avoid them at all costs. When you do see them you try to make things pleasant enough because you would never want to blow your cover as a “Christian.” After all, Jesus commanded us to love everyone! Our idea of loving another person is being nice to them and, sometimes, giving them nice things to make ourselves feel better.
Jesus does not want agape love to be difficult, and we need to understand loving others as God loves them is impossible without the empowering Spirit. As a human work, it is impossible. As we abide in the faith of Jesus, we begin to see Christ more and more in other people. We begin to acquire supernatural patience, compassion, and love for others. We begin to prophesy over their lives. We transform our schools, workplaces, and communities. Being precedes doing, and understanding what we already have in Christ is the key to abiding in His love.
Are we throwing out spiritual disciplines like time spent in the Word, prayer, meditation, and fasting? No! But we need to approach them through a lens of spiritual intimacy and relationship with Jesus. We need to view them Christologically, meaning we frame everything we do through the finished work of the Cross. Otherwise, the disciplines become religious exercises that leave us feeling burnt out and resentful. If love and intimacy with Jesus are not the focus from the beginning, it becomes a merely human pursuit of the divine.
I read my Bible because I want to learn more about who I already am in Christ; I want to learn about my supernatural identity. When I pray, I pray through the Cross, holding the Lord to every promise, and enjoy simple communion with Him. When I ask for something, I combine it with the trust that it is already done. When I fast, it’s to enjoy a heightened sense of His Presence, not win His heart by a religious exercise.
Abiding means keeping our eyes on Christ and His finished work on the Cross. A revelation of who we already are in Christ lights our hearts on fire to pursue more of Him. Who are you? You are a manifest son or daughter of heaven. You are an epistle of Christ, telling the story of God’s great love for his lost children. You are an open window of heaven’s glory, radiating supernatural power and and the love of Christ. Stop waiting for a move of God… you are a move of God! Run after Him and discover the person you are meant to be.
