Remain in Me

 

John 15:1-8 1“I am the true vine, and My Father is the keeper of the vineyard. 2He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, and every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes to make it even more fruitful. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. 

5I am the vine and you are the branches. The one who remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing. 6If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8This is to My Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, proving yourselves to be My disciples.

1John 2:3-6  3By this we can be sure that we have come to know Him: if we keep His commandments. 4If anyone says, “I know Him,” but does not keep His commandments, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5But if anyone keeps His word, the love of God has been truly perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him: 6Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

1John 3:1-10 Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. 2Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. 3And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.

4Everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness as well. Indeed, sin is lawlessness.5But you know that Christ appeared to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. 6No one who remains in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has seen Him or known Him.

7Little children, let no one deceive you: The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Christ is righteous. 8The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the very start. This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil.

9Anyone born of God refuses to practice sin, because God’s seed abides in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10By this the children of God are distinguished from the children of the devil: Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is anyone who does not love his brother.

Let's combine these quotes I have highlighted in red above to make one cohesive statement. I included the scripture around it so you can get a sense of the context and I encourage you to always read several verses ahead and behind to get that context. It's unfortunate that we take so many quotes out of context but here I want the context above to resonate with what I have below. I have combined them and made them cohesive as if Jesus would continue to talk instead of the apostles. The black words I changed from Him to Me or I. So instead of someone talking about Jesus, it's like He is still talking about Himself which is perfectly fine. 

Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. The one who remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing. Whoever claims to live in Me must live as I did. You know that I appeared to take away sins, and in Me there is no sin. No one who remains in Me keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has seen Me or known Me. Anyone born of God (like I am) refuses to practice sin, because God’s seed abides in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.

It's a cohesive formation from multiple sources blending together as one, which if we study scripture, should happen as we study. It also supports the fact that John and Jesus are one as they both are saying the same thing. This is coming from one source, which is God, as He speaks to Jesus and to John across decades and now centuries to line up what they said to what we should be hearing from Him as well. This is why the study of what man says over what God speaks to you or what scripture says is dangerous. We cannot rely on others to tell us what the truth is, we have to find it for ourselves.

Remain in me, how is that done. In Romans, Paul puts it like this, walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. Jesus says remain in me, so does John. Different ways of saying the same thing but basically it comes down to realizing Christ dwells within you and God dwells in Christ. Therefore, Jesus says both of them dwell within us and we have them as weapons to destroy the flesh which in turn destroys sin. Sin is just disobedience, so if we stay in Him then we have no disobedience and therefore no sin. 

I got this parable yesterday as I was driving and praying on my way to work. Think of God, Jesus and you in the setting of a football game or really any sport. God is the owner of the team. He owns the team, the stadium and anything having to do with the team. If His team is doing good, He gets the glory for it. If the team does bad, He starts firing people. The coach of the team is Jesus. He creates the plays that make the team succeed. He oversees the entire team and He gives the quarterback, the Holy Spirit, the directions on how to lead the team. We are the players on the team. If we follow the direction of the  coach and the quarterback then we succeed but if we refuse to listen, we fail. We cannot go out on the field with our own ideas on how to run or catch the ball and score. There are too many players. If every player stepped out on the field without being led, there would be chaos. The opposing team is the devil and his demons. They are very organized and very intimidating. They taunt and tease as we line up across from them but if we stick to the training of our coach we will succeed. 

If anyone has played organized sports, you win by who is mentally tougher. With the devil, he is always mentally tougher unless we listen to our coach and quarterback. Each time a football team runs a play, the coach on the sidelines tells the quarterback what play to run. Then the team huddles on the field quickly so the quarterback can relay that play over to the rest of the team. When the team lines up to play, everyone on the team should know how to execute the play so they can succeed against the enemy. If one person fails at understanding or the enemy gets under the skin of a team member, then the whole play can fail. 

The enemies whole goal is to stop God's team from scoring and eventually winning. They cheat, they lie and they'll do anything they can to keep us from winning in the end. What's at stake, the stadium full of fans. They aren't players yet and they only look to see who is winning. If the devil is winning, then they root for his team. If God is winning, then they root for God's team. Lately, God's team has been struggling to listen to His guidance and therefore are losing. 

It takes complete obedience in order for a team to succeed. Again, abide in me. If we want to abide in Christ we listen to His leadership and follow what He tells us and we learn from His example. God is the team owner, He instructs the coach and the coach instructs the quarterback and the quarterback instructs the team. If we don't have faith in that system, if we struggle with listening to our owner, then we may be cut from the team, not by His doing but by ours. God never cuts anyone from the team. He sees in us the potential to succeed in His program. Like all good coaches, they create players that succeed and not fail. When a player does fail, it's usually because they failed to listen and thought they could play the game better or differently. Each time they try, they fail. 

To Remain in Him is to listen, to listen is to succeed, to succeed is to win. What do we win? We win Him and all He has.

To God be the Glory!