In John 15 we see that, above all else, Jesus? message was to abide in him. He very clearly says, ?Abide in me? and if you do this you will ?bear fruit?.
So the question is, how do you get to abide in him? The passage says you can?t do anything worthwhile apart from Him in the first place; you must first come to him. So how do you get to him? Is it by joining ?His organization?? I am employed in an organization which was founded and run by a certain dynamic individual, (we'll call him "Bob") who inherited the company from his father. I?m expected to dedicate a great part of my life to the organization, abiding by its core principles and direction from "Bob". In this organization, my work, dedication, and how closely I keep the highly regarded company values is evaluated by all my peers, so I?m very motivated to do what is ?right?. But I wonder, no matter how dedicated and ?good? I become as an employee, would this in itself allow me to really say that I abide in Bob? Does it bring me to know Bob or Bob to know me?
Philippians 3:8 says: W hat is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.
Does a certain type of acquired knowledge in itself bring us to abide in Him? When Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, he said, You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that bear witness of Me; yet you are unwilling to come to me, that you may have life ( John 5:39,40 ).
In many places, the Bible speaks of things like, ?Christ abiding in you? (John 15), being ?in Christ? (very often), Christ being ?in you? (Rom. 8, 2 Cor 13:5), being joined to Christ (Rom 7:4), Christ dwelling in your heart (Eph 3:16), a person having the Son (1 John 5:12), living together with Christ (1 Thess 5:9,10), etc. Paul even says that Christ lives in him (Gal 2:19). Now we might ask, was this a figure of speech to Paul used to symbolize how carefully he lived by Jesus? lectures on scripture? Perhaps it was the teachings of Christ that actually lived in him? It seems clear that Paul didn?t speak in an impersonal way about Jesus, but that Jesus is very real and important to him in a personal sense and that it should be the same for us: 2 Cor 5:15 - And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.