September 24

Remain 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. — John 15:4 BSB

The Lord did not use these words as though there were any power in us to abide in him. Rather, he used them so that, when the Holy Spirit applies them to our hearts, they might bless us. For he adds, “And I in you.” The one is the key to the other. If we abide in Christ, it is because Christ abides in us. It is through Christ abiding in us that we are enabled to abide in him.

How does Christ abide in us? By his Spirit. It is through his Spirit that he makes our bodies his temple, and it is by his Spirit that he dwells in us. Although it is instrumentally by faith, as the Scripture says, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith,” it is through the communication of his Spirit to the soul and the gracious visits of his presence. Thus, he invites, encourages, and enables us to abide in him by his abiding in us.

This abiding of Christ in us can be known by certain effects. If he abides in you, he makes and keeps your conscience tender. Sin separates us from him, so the Lord Jesus, in order to abide in you and help you abide in him, keeps your conscience tender in his fear. This keeps you from sins that would separate you from him. He can be known to abide in you by the secret warnings he gives you when temptation comes, and you are almost overcome. As one said, “My feet had almost slipped.” But he gives you a secret internal warning and check, and your cry is, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”

And when you go astray and turn from the Lord to your idols—as we often do to our shame and sorrow—he shows that he still abides in you by not giving you over to a reprobate mind, by not allowing you to harden your heart against him. Through his reproofs, warnings, secret checks, and the very chastisements he brings upon you, he proves that he still abides in you. His pleadings in your conscience, his fatherly discipline, and his gentle corrections all reveal that he remains within you.