Abide in Christ? Just How Exactly Does One Do That?

And Why Does it Matter that We Abide in Christ?

“The Dude abides,” but do we?

Jesus gave a significant promise, a “Huuuge” promise…

4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 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. (Jn 15:4-5 ESV) 

It’s a promise and a warning. The promise is that we can bear “much fruit” if we abide in Him. But the warning should be sobering: “apart from me you can do nothing.” 

I have always found the concept of “abiding” to be mysterious. Mystical. Something for monks and saints (the famous kinds of saints). Union with Christ sounds like graduate-level spirituality. 

But Jesus meant it to be a way of life for all His disciples. 

And as I’ve thought lately about focus, I realize that, for the Christian, focus is simply abiding in Christ. 

I am a Christian.

The Holy Spirit of Jesus has been living in me since I was reborn. 

Paul says, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

If I have the Holy Spirit, I need to focus on Him to walk by Him. 

What is that? How do you focus on the Spirit? Do you walk around saying to yourself, “Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit?” 

That wouldn’t be a terrible idea, but you’d need to go further. (Or is it farther?) Also, you have things to do. Can you be in the Spirit while you’re about those things (work, conversations, reading books, and a million other things)?

Abiding is being present and keeping your day in focus. When you are present and mindful, and you have the Holy Spirit, you are present and mindful with the Holy Spirit. 

For instance…

After a spiritual retreat this past weekend, I realized I need help with email. My knee-jerk reaction is to check it constantly. Why? Because I want to make sure there are no new emails. New emails mean something to take care of. I don’t want anything to take care of. I just want to know there is nothing. 

But there is always something.

Then, I am engaged in reaction mode and will struggle for the rest of the day to be present in my work, because I am frantically trying to solve all the problems that have come in by email. 

Understand that this is normal. I’m involved in a lot, so there are a lot of things, mostly good things, to address by email. Maybe it’s a new potential client. That’s a good thing. But it’s a slight enough stressor that I have to deal with now. 

I deal with it and go back to work.

But five minutes later, I toggle back to email without even thinking about it. There is an interesting Substack post from one of you that I subscribe to. Now I’m interested and engaged in your interesting and engaging headline.

What’s wrong with that? I’m supposed to be working! 

Or, worse, I’m at the urinal in a public place. God help me if I get bored while I’m going to the bathroom. I’d better check quickly to ensure nothing needs my attention right this minute. (And you wonder why I’m always dropping things in the toilet?)

By the end of the day of checking and addressing email every 5 minutes, I am UNFOCUSED. I am not abiding in Christ because I am abiding in the mild fear that someone or something needs my attention “out there” somewhere. 

This is no way to live. 

When I thought and prayed about how to live more fully in the state I was out in the wilderness of the Windridge Solitude Retreat, God’s voice, or just plain common sense (sometimes the same thing) said, “Email, man. Email.” 

As I write this, I am trying to avoid checking email until lunchtime. I’ll spend an hour dealing with whatever is in there, and then again this evening before I quit for the day. 

What will I do instead of checking email all day?

I will abide. 

If you are a Christian and you are abiding, then you are abiding with the Holy Spirit, who has been abiding the whole time you were checking email at that weird time, waiting for you to come be with Him. 

If you have thought about your values and listed them, then you know what you want to do with your days–you know what you want. Only by focusing, that is, abiding, will you be conscious enough to do what is best in light of what you want. 

A disclaimer: I know the best way to abide is in the Word and prayer. But I also know I can go through my devotions completely absent-minded, i.e., while not abiding. 

Abiding is focus. 

Email is not the problem; allowing it to capture my focus against my will is the problem. Then it becomes “gratifying the desires of the flesh,” even if just in a minor way (compared to the major ways of murder and adultery!). 

Imagine if you could abide all day today, focused on whatever is pure, good, and lovely. What would it be like to take Jesus up on His promise that you will bear much fruit? 

Give it a try, and let me know how it goes. I’m praying for both of us.