What Does It Mean To Abide In Christ [and How to Abide in Christ]?

What Does It Mean To Abide In Christ [and how to abide in Christ]?

The word “abide” is used often in Christian circles, and it’s used in scripture, with a promise attached.  So it’s a good idea to figure out as women who follow Jesus, what does it mean to abide in Christ?  And if we’re supposed to do it, how do we abide in Christ?

Let’s Define What Abiding Is and Isn’t

First, let’s establish what abiding is not.  It is not spiritually pulling up our bootstraps, and on our own strength, acting like “good Christians.”  It’s not, having accepted the gift of grace Christ offers us by His death and resurrection, suddenly having all the power in ourselves to do the right things.  It’s not doing our daily “devotional” five minute book reading or podcast listen.  It’s not even making sure we show up faithfully at church or to “fellowship with our community.”

But Jesus told us to “abide in Him.”  In fact, He spoke at length in John 15 about abiding in Himself to the disciples, likely at the end of the last supper He shared with them.  He began the conversation speaking about vines and branches, the vinedresser, fruitfulness, and pruning.  He compared life in Him to the life cycle of a grapevine, and reminded His listeners that without the vine, a branch was worthless.  And then He said these words: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love” (John 15:7-10).

As women of God, we want to listen closely to the commands Jesus gave, so that we might lean into them.  And in this case, His instruction to abide in Himself came with a promise of joy!

Salvation Leads to Transformation

Abiding in Christ, just like our salvation, is a responsive act, empowered by God Himself. Paul said it this way to the Galatian church in Galatians 3:2-3, “This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” 

He goes on in the following verses to remind them that “hearing with faith” and “believing” are the ways God works in His people.  If we lean into these verses, we abide in Christ by hearing God’s word and believing it. That doesn’t mean we won’t also act on what we hear and believe. 

The New Testament is clear that our salvation will lead to transformation, and our transformation will lead to action in obedience to what we hear and believe.  Interestingly, even that action is empowered by God Himself. So a more thorough definition, then, is perhaps that abiding in Christ is, having been saved by hearing and believing and confessing the gift of forgiveness because of Jesus’ sacrifice, by the power of the Holy Spirit who indwells the saved at salvation, walking in obedience to what we have heard and believed.

This abiding is a process.  Over the course of our lives, we walk out a cycle of hearing, believing, and obeying (often, because we are still humans with an innate sin nature, that cycle is interrupted by disobedience, discipline and restoration.  That’s for another post!).  As we do walk out this life, God transforms us ever more into His likeness, and He uses our transformation to show a watching, needful world His power and goodness.

How Do We Abide In Christ?

So how do we follow this command to abide in Him?  Here are some ideas we can all use:

 We spend time with God by reading the Bible
 We spend time with God by praying
 We meditate on the Gospel
 We obey God
 We practice Biblical fellowship

1. Spend Time with God

The first way we abide in Christ is to spend time with Him. 

For Christians, that means we spend time reading the Word He left for us – the Bible.  And while our flesh may tell us it’s too hard, that time in the Word is most effective when it’s frequent, regular, and dedicated. 

Colossians 3:16 says: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord”

When God’s Word dwells in us, we are dwelling in His presence.

If it seems hard, or you’re in a season when the Bible seems dry, pray as you begin and as you read for God to open your eyes to the truths He wants to teach you.  Ask Him (because He tells us to!) to fill you with His Spirit and to use His Word to draw you closer to Himself – to use it to help you abide in Him. 

The more time we spend reading the Bible, the more time we’re spending with the One who authored it! We may also abide in God as we spend time in prayer, writing (journaling) our thoughts to the Lord, and meditating on His truth, but that should always be first grounded in the Bible.  This keeps our thoughts truth-rooted and keeps us from being swayed by emotion or the sometimes-faulty opinions of others.

2. Pray to God Daily

This brings us to a second way we abide in Christ – through prayer.  
In His famous example to His followers, Jesus modeled how we pray.  He tells us in Matthew 6:5-20 that we
 Pray humbly (“in secret,” v. 6)
 Recognize He is our Father (v. 9)
 Worship Him first (v. 9)
 Seek HIS will, above our own, and acknowledge it’s already being done (v. 10)
 Request our needs and our forgiveness (v. 11-12)
 Ask His help to walk in obedience to Him and avoid evil (v. 13)

We draw close to Jesus when we spend time speaking with Him in prayer. 

3. Meditate on the Word of God/Gospel

Another way we abide in Christ is to dwell on the Gospel, and meditate on His Word. “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth” – Psalm 46:10.

Sometimes, we can add all kinds of “Jesus, PLUS” rules and distractions for ourselves.  We may think we have to have the perfect devotional book or highlighters (speaking to myself here!), add lots of Christian-y events to our calendar, or follow all the tips and suggestions of a particular teacher we follow.  But at its core, the Christian life is about responding as hopeless sinners to the call of Jesus, loving Him as He directs, and following Him as those whom He has saved.  In Psalms 42-43, we see the writer “preaching the gospel to himself” as he reminds himself to put his hope in God and praise Him, his savior.  

4. Obey God

We abide in Christ by obeying Him.

Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus are full of instructions to obey God, and strong reminders of why this is so important.  He tells readers that our obedience is how we walk with God, and how we show God’s transforming power, through His work in us, to a world that needs to see Him. In fact, Titus 3:2-4 actually connects our obedience to our very identity in Christ: before Him, we were disobedience fools.  After coming to know Christ, our hearts are transformed and our response is walking with Him in obedience to His leading, teaching and command.  

As John puts it, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous” (1 John 5:3).  And, “this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it” (2 John 1:6).  And perhaps most compelling: “And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us”  (1 John 3:24). 

One of the most amazing things to me about the Christian life is that God, by His indwelling Spirit, enables us to follow the commands He gives us – we aren’t left to do it on our own!

5. Fellowship with Other Believers

One more way we abide in Christ is through fellowship with other believers, in His name.  

The words “fellowship” and “community” are used a lot in Christian circles, aren’t they?  For our grandparents, they might have represented potlucks after church and taking meals to people in need.  They can still include those things, but the Bible paints a picture of the kind of community where we rely on each other to point our hearts to Jesus – to abide in Christ. 

Matthew 18:15-20 is a wonderful example of how both sweet and hard fellowship points us to the working of Jesus.  Here we see instructions for how to address sin in the church, ending with a reminder that “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (v20). When we gather with other believers in the name of Jesus, speaking truth to each other, encouraging and challenging each other, God is with us!

(Want to see another example of Biblical fellowship?  Read the story of Apollos in Acts 18:24-28!  Apollos’ biblical community challenged, corrected and taught him and it made His ministry even more effective!)

Abiding means living with, walking with.  And because God loves us, He invites us to abide with Him, teaches us how to abide with Him, and enables us to do it even while we’re awaiting our forever-home in Heaven where we will fully and completely abide with Him!

Written by Angela Sackett.

Angela Sackett is a wife, momma, home educator, speaker, author and photographer (and her house is perpetually in need of a good dusting!). She blogs at Everyday Welcome, where she writes about food, faith, and living the inviting life, encouraging women to open their hearts and homes to know God more deeply and share Him with others. She coaches women in nourishing body and soul one-on-one through her course, Refined Journey.