In John 15, Jesus is addressing His disciples before He was to die on the cross. Judas had already been dismissed to do his wickedness of betrayal and the remaining eleven of His disciples were with Jesus. And we read in verses 1-5, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 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 apart from me you can do nothing.”
Notice He says “abide in me…”. The word abide basically means to stay put and not depart. The disciples had just witnessed one of the best illustrations of this, when Jesus had dismissed Judas. When Jesus told His disciples that one of them would betray Him, they didn’t all immediately look at Judas as if to say, “Yeah, and we know who!” No…they all asked “Is it I?” They had no idea who would do such a thing. But, even though Judas had spent the same amount of time with Jesus as the rest of them and had witnessed the mighty works of Jesus, he had never truly placed His faith in Him. There are a LOT of people in the world today who pastor churches, teach Sunday school classes, and do other works – yet they have no genuine faith in God. If we TRULY have faith in God we WILL abide in Him, and not be driven off at the slightest hint of difficulty in the Christian life or as soon as something “better” comes along.
Someone once said “The best test of a man’s character is what it takes to stop him.” And that is a good test of our genuine faith in God. What does it take to stop us from trusting Him? Note how Jesus instructs them. WITHOUT ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING! We have all the reason in the world to ABIDE – STAY PUT! Once we have trusted in Him as our Lord and Savior – we should let NOTHING distract us or keep us from following Him. There is NOTHING in this world that can even compare to a life in His service. Place your faith in Him. COMPLETELY in Him, and stay put! ABIDE!