ABIDING IN JESUS !
A Transaction with Jesus
JESUS’s commands are for a lifetime. HE does not command a once-for-all decision to repent or come or believe or love or listen. Rather HE wishes that we go on repenting, coming, believing, loving, and listening. The transformation of repentance continues. Coming to JESUS again and again continues. Believing in HIM hour by hour continues. Listening to HIS word as the daily source of spiritual life continues. JESUS hopes for the engagement of our minds and hearts every day of our lives.
A transaction with JESUS in the past that has no ongoing expression (NO ENGAGEMENT OF THE HEART) in our lives was a false transaction. When JESUS said, “IF”** you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples” (John 8:31), he meant that if we don’t abide, we are not truly his disciples. And the opposite of true disciples is false disciples. That’s what we are if we count on past experiences without ongoing devotion to JESUS. ** The word “IF” is found 1596 time in the HOLY BIBLE. A powerful word concerning “Conditions”. As stated “If we Abide” means we have a choice to make, either abide or not, it is up to us (Free Will). The choice is obvious, but we still have to make that choice, not by what we say but what we do after the choice is made.
A Lifelong Extension of Encountering JESUS
One way that JESUS taught the necessity of an ongoing devotion was to command, “Abide in ME.” There is nothing unique about the word abide. In the language of the New Testament, it is the ordinary word for “stay” or “continue” or sometimes “dwell.” But JESUS meant: “Stay in ME. Continue in ME. Keep ME for your dwelling.” It is the lifelong extension of encountering JESUS, of putting HIM First in your life. Above all and Before all. (Matthew 6:33)
The context of this command is the analogy of a vine and its branches. JESUS compares HIMSELF to the vine and us to branches:
“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. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in ME and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for WITHOUT ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING”. (John 15:4–5)
This picture helps us understand what JESUS meant by abiding in HIM. The main point of the analogy is that power to bear fruit—that is, power to live a fruitful life of JESUS CHRIST-like love (John 15:12)— flows from JESUS if we stay vitally connected to HIM. Then we are like a branch connected to the vine so that all the life-sustaining, fruit-producing sap can flow into it. JESUS is explicit in STATING THAT he IS that power that we need to live fruitful lives. HE says, “Apart from ME you can do nothing.” Abiding in JESUS means staying vitally connected to the life-giving, power-giving, fruit-producing branch, namely, JESUS the CHRIST EMMANUEL (GOD be with us).
The Moment-by-Moment Cause of Every Good Thing
In other words, JESUS commands that HE be the moment-by-moment cause of every good thing in our lives. “APART from ME you can do Nothing.” Nothing ! Well, we could sin and stop bearing fruit and perish without HIM. But that’s not what HE promises to produce. HE means: “Without ME you can do nothing truly good, truly GOD honoring and JESUS CHRIST-exalting and self-abasing and eternally helpful for others.” Abiding in JESUS means staying vitally connected, hour by hour, to the one who alone produces in our lives everything he commands. Our free will is what derails GOD’s plans for us. We have to be extremely careful that we never stray, We have to destroy compromise and complacency
When it rears it’s ugly head, knowing that somehow we have backslid and given a chance for the wicked one to have a toehold on our Salvation.
If You Abide, You Bear Fruit
But practically, what does this mean in our experience? What is this “staying vitally connected”? How do we do this? One important part of the answer is to make clear that abiding in JESUS is the same as bearing fruit or keeping his commandments, IF WE ARE ALL IN, NO COMPROMISE.. Fruit-bearing and commandment-keeping are the result of abiding. If we abide, we bear fruit.
JESUS does not contradict this when he says, “If you keep MY commandments, you will abide in MY love” (John 15:10). This does mean keeping HIS commandments is abiding in his love. That would be like saying: fruit is being connected to the vine. No. Fruit is the result of our abiding in HIM. They are not the same thing. What JESUS means is that if you don’t keep the commandments, that is, if you don’t bear the fruit of love (for love is the sum of his commandments, John 15:12), you have ceased to abide in HIM. For the truth stands: “Whoever abides in me . . . bears much fruit” (John 15:5).
So the answer to our question, “How do we abide in JESUS?” “By bearing fruit” AND “by keeping HIS commandments.”. The point is to discover HOW to bear fruit. The answer is, by abiding in JESUS. And so the question becomes: How do we abide in JESUS ? What does it mean in actual experience?
Practically, How Do We Abide in Jesus?
JESUS uses two other similar phrases that point to the answer. He refers to abiding in HIS LOVE. And HE refers to abiding in HIS WORD. Both of these points towards abiding (Participating) as continual trust in the TRUTH of JESUS’s words and in the certainty of HIS love. We can’t just say we abide, we must cause action as spoken in James 1:22 “But be you doers, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves”. Action from LOVE, not just going through the motion, no heart…
Abiding Means Trusting in Jesus’s Love
Not to abide in JESUS’s love would mean that we stop believing that we are loved by JESUS. We look at our circumstances—perhaps persecution or disease or abandonment—and we conclude that we are not loved by JESUS anymore. That’s the opposite of abiding in the love of JESUS. So abiding in his love means CONTINUING to believe, moment by moment, that we are loved purely by HIM.
Everything that comes into our lives under JESUS’s Sovereign Authority (Matthew 8:8) is part of HIS love for us. “That’s how my FATHER cares for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field; how much more you!” (cf. Matthew 6:26–30). And if it is painful, HE says, “Fear not, the worst that can happen is death, and I have overcome death. I will be with you to the end. And you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (cf. Matthew 10:28; 28:20; John 11:25–26; Luke 14:14). Abiding in JESUS means trusting that this is true—and true for you. That is, it means living on HIS truth moment by moment. It flows to us like sap flows to a branch. We receive it and get our life from it every day, if WE Trust in HIM (Proverbs 3:5-6).
Abiding Means Trusting in Jesus’s Word
Similarly, this is true with the phrase, “Abide in MY word” (John 8:31). This cannot mean merely, “Keep my commandments.” Rather it means, “Keep on trusting MY word. Keep on trusting what I have revealed to you about MYSELF and MY FATHER and MY work.” The context of John 8:31–32 confirms this: “JESUS said to the Jews who had believed in HIM, ‘If you abide in MY WORD, you are truly MY disciples, and you will know the TRUTH, and the TRUTH will set you free.’” The result of abiding in JESUS’s word is being set free. From what? From sin. That’s the slavery JESUS has in mind, as John 8:34 shows: “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (RSV). So freedom from sin is the fruit of abiding in the WORD. “If you abide in MY WORD . . . the TRUTH will set you free.” Not sinning is the fruit, not the definition, of abiding in HIS WORD. So, by keeping the commandments of JESUS, which is another way of describing liberation from sin, is not the meaning of abiding in HIS WORD but the fruit of it. Once again, being a doer and not a hearer only.
We are not idle in the battle to abide in JESUS.
So we conclude that abiding in JESUS—in HIS love and in HIS WORD—is trusting that HE really is loving us at every moment and that everything he has revealed about himself and HIS work for us and our future with HIM is true. Believing in JESUS as our living water means drinking the water—savoring it and being satisfied with it. So it is with the sap that flows from the vine to the branch. We receive it, drink it, savor it, and satisfy our souls with it. This daily ever-renewed satisfaction in JESUS is the key to bearing fruit.1 To always remember to share our day with HIM. Upon wakening, Thanking HIM for Life, for a roof over our head, food on the table, our Health, our safety and protection (praying the Whole Armor of GOD, LORD JESUS and the HOLY SPIRIT over you and your loved ones), running water, our finances, our transportation and everything else you can remember that HE provides for you and those around you. When you read 1 Thessalonians 5:18 “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of GOD in CHRIST JESUS concerning you”. It is GOD’s will to thank HIM every day ! This is most of what it means to abide in JESUS.
JESUS Keeps Us Abiding
As easy as it seems to abide, to stay implanted, to drink, to rest in JESUS (The Sabbath), the truth is that we are often tempted to find our life-giving sap from another plant. And besides our own sinful tendencies, the devil himself wants to snatch us out of the vine, and we must pray daily, JESUS said, that GOD would “deliver us from evil” as long as we participate in our relationship with HIM… (Matthew 6:13). Therefore, we need to remind ourselves that JESUS does not leave us to ourselves. Even though he prompts us to abide in HIM—we alone are responsible to abide in HIM, and guilty if we don’t abide—nevertheless HE himself wants us there..
JESUS himself illustrated how HE prays for HIS own disciples and gives them strength from falling away. HE predicted Simon Peter’s three denials on the night before his death. But then HE spoke with Sovereign Authority to Simon in words that should encourage all of us. “Simon, Simon, behold, satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:31–32). Jesus prayed for Simon’s keeping and knew it would happen. He said, “When you have turned” not “If you turn.” GOD’s answer to JESUS’s prayer was sovereignly decisive. Yes, Simon’s faith faltered, and he sinned by denying JESUS. But his faith did not fail utterly. He was not cut off from the vine. JESUS prayed for him. And there is no reason to think JESUS has ceased praying for us this way today.
We are not idle in the battle to abide in JESUS. But in the end the battle is assured to those who truly LOVE HIM, because it does not depend totally on us. JESUS wins. No one can snatch those of us who are completely committed to HIM, out of his hand. HE and his FATHER are greater than all.
Colossians 3:17 ministries with This article being adapted and updated from All That Jesus Commanded: The Christian Life according to the Gospels by John Piper.
Last Updated on July 19, 2026 by admin