Be Still

In reading about abiding most people go to John 15, it was the favorite scripture of the wonderful woman who discipled me in college.  However, when I started really looking at it the Lord said something to me that started me reading in John 14.  It seems very straight forward and obvious and yet somehow I had missed this connection all these many years.  Maybe the rest of you already realize it but, as Jesus is speaking to his disciples (starting around verse 6 in Chapter 14), he starts describing his own relationship with his Father.  I’ve always known that the way in which Jesus relied on his Father is supposed to be the same relationship we have but I never realized he was having this conversation right before he starts talking about the vine and the branches.  It really changed my perspective of how I read it. 

He first uses his own life to demonstrate the act of abiding.  What if we applied that directly to our lives.  Jesus tells the disciples “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.” (John 14:7).  Would someone be able to say they know Jesus because they know me?  Would they be able to say they see Jesus in me?  I hope so but for sure there are probably more times than I’d like to think that that is not the case. 

He goes on “Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.” (John 14:10) Sounds familiar doesn’t it.  Let’s compare it to John 15:5 “I (Jesus speaking) am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”  So Jesus is telling his disciples, this is not me doing these works, it is my Father.  And then in the very next chapter saying it will not be you doing my work, it will be me in you doing my work.

In John 14:11 Jesus says, “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at lease believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.” Jesus walking this earth is such a hard concept for us to grasp.  Yes, he was fully God, but he was also fully man.  He left behind the glory and honor and became a servant, a human, with a physical body that felt pain and suffering as he went to the cross.  His life was a true example of how we are called to live as followers of him, totally and fully dependent on Him for all we do as He was fully dependent on His Father.  He describes the miracles he did as evidence that the Father was in Him.  It was His dependence on the Father that brought the miraculous into the world.

He goes on and says “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.  You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it.” (John 14:12-14) How many of us read that verse and have a “yeah right” mentality. But Jesus tells us when we have faith in Him we will do what He has been doing.  I see “what [He has] been doing” differently than before. Not as just performing signs wonders and miracles but abiding in His Father, loving others so much he is willing to die for them and being obedient to his Father.  It is our faith in Him, not ourselves, not the things we see Him doing but in the person of Jesus Christ.  And when that is how we are aligned, in Him, He will do whatever we ask so that He will bring glory to the Father. 

Now in Chapter 15, the parallel of the vine and the branches, Jesus says, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15:7-8) The Greek word for “remain” is meno which means “to stay (in a given place, state or relation or expectancy) — abide, continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand, tarry (for).” (Strong’s Concordance) In the case of John 15:7 it means to not depart, to continue to be present.  And the Greek for “words” in verse 7 is rhema which is the spoken word.

So as we abide in Him, as we continue on in Him and His word we see fruit.  I see this often in prayer.  When I am praying about something, I don’t just start praying, I don’t want to pray according to my worldly wisdom or knowledge, it will surely fail. I ask the Lord what He says about the matter and then I wait and listen.  And I find when I am patient to listen to Him, His rhema word, then I am able to not only pray in faith but also fully expect that whatever I have asked will be given because it is His word, and His plan, not mine.

So back to Chapter 14, Jesus says, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” (John 14:15) It’s not a command, it’s a result that naturally follows our love.  There are things that I may not enjoy doing, but I will do them because I love my husband and children – not out of obligation or requirement, simply out of love. 

Now compare that to John 15:9 He says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.” It seems like the condition has switched, right?  But skip ahead to verse 12-13 and he says “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus is literally telling his disciples and us in this verse “I am going to give (have given) you the greatest love any person could ever give”. And he gave that in obedience to the Father. We see that in John 14:30-31 when Jesus says, “I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming.  He has no hold on me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me…”(emphasis added). The cross was the love of the Father and the Son on display.  It was the love Jesus had for his Father in obedience and the love He had for us in sacrifice. 

Jesus finishes the vine and branches section with this verse “This is my command: Love each other.” (John 15:17) I don’t find his insertion and reiteration of that command in this section to be an accident but rather an understanding of what is the driving factor of the entire idea of abiding.  It is love. It is love for the Father, love for the son, love for one another which is all lived out because of the love we have received.  Our obedience, our lives flow out of that and if they do not we have missed out on the who of God.  God is not looking for our obedience out of fear.  He is looking for obedience driven by love, because “Perfect love cast out fear.” (1 John 4:18 NKJV)

I could go on but I will leave you with this.  The same person who wrote the gospel of John, who penned his name as “the one whom Jesus loved” and heard all of these words from Jesus also wrote the letters of John. In 1 John he writes “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives (meno: dwells) in love lives in God and God in him.” (1 John 4:16) (Greek definition added).