What Happens When We Abide

By: Jenifer Metzger

I am the vine; you are the branches.

Whoever abides in Me and I in him,
he it is that bears much fruit, for
apart from Me you can do nothing.

John 15:5 ESV

In John, Jesus tells us that if we abide in Him, He will abide in us. He also says that we will bear much fruit when we do this abiding. But what exactly does this mean? How do we abide in Him? What happens when we abide?

Abiding in Christ means staying connected to Him, our source of life. Something happened to my laptop battery recently. When my laptop comes unplugged, it loses power. Even though the battery appears to be full, without being plugged into its power source, it shuts down. So if I want to work on my laptop, I must stay connected to a power source. If we lose our connection to God, we lose our connection to our power source.

How to abide in Christ, stay connected to our power source.

Pray. We need to be women of prayer. Have a regular prayer time where we worship God, confess our sins, give thanks, and bring needs to Him. We also need to regularly lift needs to God as they arise; our needs, the needs of others, our leaders, our church, etc. And we need to regularly give praise and thanks to God throughout our day.

Be in the Word. We need to be women of the Word. Read our Bible regularly. Read it, study it, meditate on it, pray it, memorize it. We need to be in the Word.

Go to church. We need to be women who faithfully attend church. But not just attend your church on Sunday morning, serve, participate, be an active part of your church body.

Walk in truth. We need to be women who walk in truth. To walk in truth, we need to know truth, and know The Truth. To do this, it goes back to being in the Word, once you know the Word, you can live out the truth of those words.

What happens when we begin to abide?

We grow in the Fruits of the Spirit. John 15:5 tells us we will bear fruit when we abide. This means we will see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control grow in our lives.

We will find freedom from sin. The more we stay connected to our powers source, the more freedom we will find from struggles with sin and guilt over past sin.

We will find contentment. The more we abide, the more we find contentment in our lives. We will feel less of a need for approval from the world, and more of a desire to grow closer to God.

We find a richness in our relationship with God. The more we abide in God, the deeper that relationship will be. It will become a vital part of our very being.

We must be women who are intentional about staying connected to our power source, and the more we stay connected, the more we abide. The more we abide, the deeper our roots to the vine grow.

Discussion:
1. What do you struggle with in staying connected to your power source? Where do you feel you've made good growth?
2. Which result of abiding are you must desiring right now?