ABIDE Devotionals
By Heather Hanton
REMAIN
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” John 15:9
As we anticipate our upcoming ABIDE Women’s Conference this October, we will be exploring all the different themes of abiding in Christ from John 15 and throughout the Bible to prepare our hearts for ABIDE.
What does it mean to remain? Physical things that remain and can’t be moved easily are mountains, monuments, statues, and buildings. They are still.
When I was little and would sometimes throw a tantrum, my mom would say, “Be still!” as if she were Jesus telling the waves and wind to stop. It was her way to get me to calm down, refocus, and breathe.
Sometimes in life we will find ourselves having to remain or endure difficult situations. It is part of living in our fallen world. Sometimes life gets so chaotic and hard that you may think there is no way you can remain. You may even feel like cracking under the pressure.
It is then we are reminded of Jesus’ words in John 16:33: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
And again in Matthew 11:28-30: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
When God tells us to be still or to remain, He is inviting us into His presence. We pause and recenter our scattered senses on Him. His invitation to remain is wrapped up in the promise of His enduring love.
Spend time this week in prayer asking God to help you to be still in His presence. Then listen as He speaks to you.
Receive and Remain
We are now only 3 and half months away from our ABIDE conference! It seems crazy to think about but it’s true!
As you know, our conference is centered around the verse from John 15:4 where Jesus invites us: Abide in Me, and I will abide in you. A branch cannot bear fruit if it is disconnected from the vine, and neither will you if you are not connected to Me.
To prepare our hearts and minds for our conference topic, we are going to be exploring the many different themes Jesus gives us in that passage as well as the surrounding verses of John 15.
Last month I introduced this through Embrace. Our June Embrace word was “Remain” and our questions helped us to focus on what it truly means to remain or Abide in Jesus…to be still…to rest…to allow Him to do the work He has created us do through us.
To remain or abide in any situation requires a surrender of will. When Jesus said to remain in Him or when God tells us to be still, He is inviting us into His presence, to experience the indwelling of His Spirit.
I heard a sermon recently on Luke 4… specifically the passage where Jesus is rejected from his own home town of Nazareth. The speaker shared that just before he went there (looking back at Luke 3), Jesus was baptized in the Spirit, then led into the wilderness by the Spirit (Luke 4:1), and finally, returned to Galilee filled with the Spirit.
I love that progression. Jesus received the Holy Spirit, then was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested, and then returned filled with the Spirit so that He could begin His work! Here we see Jesus completely surrendered to the Spirit’s leading. He was abiding in the Spirit! And He invites us to do the same…to fully embrace and receive Him.
The speaker went on to say something that has really stuck with me: She said, there is a difference between accepting and receiving. Acceptance indicates that you are tolerating something or making allowances to endure. Whereas to receive is to welcome, to have, to partake in.
Jesus doesn’t invite us to only just accept Him, but to receive Him completely. In our John 15 passage, Jesus says remain or abide in me and I will abide or remain in you.
When you abide somewhere, you live there. You’ve set up camp. You’ve moved in, unpacked, and now reside there. I can relate to this right now, although the unpacking is an ongoing process!! I cannot wait until all the boxes are unpacked and I can sit in my living room and breathe!
That’s what Jesus is offering us when He says to remain or abide in Him. He wants us to receive Him and His Spirit into our home (hearts) and allow Him to move in, get settled, unpack…to surrender ownership over to Him. Then we are led by Him and His Spirit…sometimes through trials. But He never leaves us! And finally, we are filled with Him and His Spirit as we remain or abide in Him to do the good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10)!
Won’t you receive Him today?
The Vine
I have been doing some research on vines – types of vines; how they grow; what grows on which type of vine in which climate; etc. It is very interesting! Each fact I’ve come across has had a spiritual lesson in light of the John 15 passage.
There are many different types of vines. Some grow upwards, some downwards, and some creep along the ground. Vines grow in a community and produce fruit over hundreds of years. Some vines are good. Some wrap themselves around healthy plants and choke the life out of them. But whatever fruit grows from the vine, it has to stay connected to the vine to survive.
In this passage of John, Jesus takes his disciples on a field trip to the Mount of Olives when they stopped at the base of mountain for a lesson. Jesus used every opportunity to teach life-lessons using everyday objects and nature so that it was easy to understand. Sometimes even then, they didn’t get it or they tried to over complicate things. It can’t be that simple, right? Well, actually yes. It can. The gospel is not complicated!
Here Jesus uses a grapevine. The grapevine produces branches. The grapevine nourishes the branches so that it will bear fruit that comes from the vine. But only if it stays connected to the vine.
Jesus is the vine. When we accept Jesus as our savior, we become grafted into the vine as branches. We have new life and grow as we are connected to Him. The fruit we produce is the evidence of God’s Holy Spirit at work in our lives as we abide in Him.
Tending
“When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” John 15:10
According to John 15, Jesus is the true vine; we are the branches; God is the “Master Gardener”. However, there is work to be done to maintain or tend our heart-garden as we abide in the Vine.
Healthy gardens require things such as fertile soil, the right season, water, food, and a source of light. Cultivating or tending a garden takes time. It may take weeks or months to see any growth.
The same is true in the garden of our heart. Tending requires surrender and obedience. We surrender to the Master Gardener and commit to abide in Him, trusting in His perfect will and timing. It takes consistency, discipline, and faith.
God provides the soil, tilling it until our hearts are soft and ready to receive from Him. God’s Word is our food. Jesus provides the water of life and is the constant light in our lives. The Holy Spirit produces the fruit. We abide in the Vine but we must choose in faith to stay.
We choose to pray. We choose to study our Bible. We choose to attend church and listen to preaching of the Word. We choose to connect with other believers in community. Through spiritual disciplines, our choice to abide in the Vine allows the Holy Spirit to make our heart-gardens thrive with good fruit.
Your garden may not always look pristine or even pretty. We live in a fallen world and some days will be hard and messy. You may need healing, or feel lonely or fearful, or like you’re in a drought, dry and in desperate need of rain and you just want to give up.
Thankfully, the Master Gardener knows exactly what you need to thrive in the Vine and He will provide. When you remain faithful, He will produce a harvest that is more than you could ever imagine.
Pruning
“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.” John 15:1-2
Pruning: To cut away or remove.
When a garden is invaded by weeds, the gardener needs to prune and cut away the weeds. To ensure the weeds do not return, the gardener must get all the way to the roots, digging deep into the soil. At times the roots entangle a plant and the gardener must work carefully to cut the weeds and not damage the plant. Once pruned, that garden will begin to flourish and thrive as it was intended to do so.
Many things can invade the garden of our hearts – even when we are connected to the Vine (Jesus). We are still vulnerable to attacks from the enemy. Sin, fear, doubt, and even complacency in our faith can easily move in and if we aren’t careful, it can set up camp and take root. God, the Gardener must prune these things, digging deep into every corner of our hearts. This can be painful at times as we can get comfortable or even feel “safe” living with these “weeds”.
God will not force this pruning. But He knows what will happen if we don’t allow Him to cut the weeds out. When we hold on to those things, we will never become all that God intends us to be. Eventually, those things will entangle us and choke our spiritual life and disconnect us from the Vine.
God is also serious about this. In John 15:6, Jesus warns, “Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.”
But here is the hope: when we are connected to Jesus we are not left to defend ourselves alone. In fact, we can’t do it alone. Abiding in the Vine also means we can count on Jesus to help keep our hearts free of weeds.
Here’s more hope: when God prunes us, it actually strengthens us! Each unhealthy thing that is removed is replaced by healthy “fruit” that is strong and has roots that go deep into the Vine as we grow closer to Him.
So, what do you need the Gardener to prune today? Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you those hidden things you are holding on to. It’s time to let go and let God do the hard part. It may be painful but trust Him. He loves you so much and will never leave you. He wants you to thrive on the Vine!
Abide with Purpose
As we draw closer to the ABIDE conference (only a month away now) we’ve been working hard on getting everything ready. Our entire focus has been on that word, “abide”. For me, everything I read about or hear in a sermon, or devotional, or even on the radio all ties into abiding in Christ. It’s like the 6 degrees of separation game.
At my church, (The Salvation Army of Gwinnett Co.) we’ve been doing a series called “What Was I Made For?” talking about our identity and our purpose or calling.
As a Christian, I know that I am to be connected to the Vine (Jesus) and my purpose is to bear fruit for the glory of God. But how did I get there?
For that I have to go back to the beginning. The literal beginning. Who created me? What is my identity?
Genesis 1:26-31
Then God said, “Let us make human beings[b] in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth,[c] and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”
27 So God created human beings[d] in his own image.
In the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”
29 Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. 30 And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened.
31 Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!
And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day.
God created human beings in His image. We are last in the creation story and I believe that was intentional. If God is the artist, we are the showcase of His artwork because we were created to be different than everything else.
God made light and dark, the seas, the skies, the land, the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish in the sea. He created the passing of time and seasons, galaxies and the infiniteness of space.
Everything else that God created had life and it was so incredible. But God couldn’t have a relationship with it. So He created humans…in His image.
A reflection of God’s perfection.
Take a look at Psalm 8:3-8
3 When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—
the moon and the stars you set in place—
4 what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
human beings that you should care for them?[c]
5 Yet you made them only a little lower than God[d]
and crowned them[e] with glory and honor.
6 You gave them charge of everything you made,
putting all things under their authority—
7 the flocks and the herds
and all the wild animals,
8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea,
and everything that swims the ocean currents.
9 O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!
God immediately gave humans a purpose:
To be FRUITFUL! To care for all that He had just created. He gave them skills and knowledge to understand what to do.
And He looked at His masterpiece said it was good.
Now…we know what happens after that. The Bible isn’t clear just how much time passed before the serpent came (the enemy) to tempt Eve. We don’t really know how long everything existed perfectly in the Garden of Eden without sin and corruption. Up until that point, Adam and Eve and all of creation were abiding there in perfect harmony – with free will.
But it didn’t stay that way and now we are all a product of the fall. When sin entered the world through the choices of Adam and Eve, everything changed, including their purpose. They were banished from the garden where they abided with God. Death was now a part of life and our struggle to become right again with God began.
BUT…God’s plan of salvation was put into motion.
About 4 years ago, Lt. April Alvarez once said something in a sermon she gave as a cadet at our corps at Oakbrook Terrace that I’ve never forgotten.
She said, “When the crunching of the fruit was still echoing in the garden, Jesus was making His way to the cross.”
I love that! God’s plan of salvation for future generations began that very day. Why? Because of His great love for us…humans…that He created…in His image.
So even though everything changed that day, what didn’t change is that Adam and Eve were still created in the image of God.
And therefore so am I.
I read in Psalm 139 that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, knit by God in my mother’s womb. Another creation. And that all my days were written before one of them came to be. My story – my purpose is already written.
And because of Jesus I read in Ephesians 2:10 that I am God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared in advance for me to do.
What is my identity? I was made by a holy God, imperfect because of sin but redeemed by the Savior and given a new identity as a child of God. There is a new name written down in glory and it’s mine!
What a hope! What love of the Creator that He has a plan of salvation and a plan for my life and yours!
I know that I was created by God, in His image to reflect His image by allowing Him to mold and shape my life as a potter shapes clay and to use my life to bring honor and glory to His name.
Heather Hanton
Media and Ministries Specialist
The Salvation Army Central Territory
Women’s Ministries Department
