![Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither [can] you unless you abide in Me. John 15:4](https://www.21centurynazarites.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Abide-in-Me-and-I-in-you.-As-the-branch-cannot-bear-fruit-of-itself-unless-it-abides-in-the-vine-so-neither-can-you-unless-you-abide-in-Me.-John-154.jpg)
In John 15:4, Jesus says, Abide in me and I in you. You know, God wants to abide in you. His greatest longing is to dispense Himself into you and transmit to you all that He is and has.
But He does not just do it. He wants you to take the initiative to abide in Him first. How do we do that? Well, all it takes is that we open to Him. When we open ourselves to Him, He comes to abide in us, and as a result, we will bear fruit.
This we can see in John 15:5, where Jesus says, He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit. And then He says, for apart from Me, you can do nothing.
Actually, we can do a lot of things, but if we do them apart from the vine, they are all nothing. If we don’t take the initiative to abide in Him, He cannot abide in us, and whatever we do will be of no value.
In my second term, the Lord exposed how all my efforts in preaching the gospel, they were nothing because I was not abiding in the Lord. I was like a stick on the ground trying to bear fruit by myself.
Through this experience, I painfully realized that apart from the Lord, I can do nothing. But if we take the initiative to abide in Him, He comes to abide in us, and spontaneously we will bear fruit for the glorification of the Father. Amen!
When we were saved, we were grafted into Christ as the vine. Now we are branches in the vine. We are in Christ. This is a fact, and this fact will never change.
Our abiding in Christ as divine depends on our seeing a clear vision that we are branches in the vine. To be in the Lord is a matter of union, and to abide in the Lord is a matter of fellowship.
![Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither [can] you unless you abide in Me. John 15:4](https://i0.wp.com/www.21centurynazarites.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/I-am-the-vine-you-are-the-branches.-He-who-abides-in-Me-and-I-in-him-he-bears-much-fruit-for-apart-from-Me-you-can-do-nothing.-John-155-2.jpg?resize=400%2C400&ssl=1 "Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither [can] you unless you abide in Me. John 15:4")
Once we see that we are branches in the vine, we need to maintain the fellowship between us and the Lord.
How do we maintain the fellowship with Him? We do so by remaining in Him, opening to Him, and allowing Him to spread into our entire being.
When I was going through certain experiences, oftentimes I would be so deceived by my feelings, thinking that the Lord is not near or that I’m no longer in Him. But then the Lord will remind me of this Word that I am in Him already.
I do not need to struggle to get into Him. He is just a turn away. All I need to do is to turn to Him.
It doesn’t matter what condition we are in. Even if we’re so weak, we can still turn to him and say, lord, I’m so weak right now. But I still turn. I still open.
This is how we can maintain our fellowship with the Lord. This is our living a life of abiding in Him. Amen!
This is a sharing from the recent FTTL Graduation by one of the graduating trainees. Praise the Lord for such a sweet and encouraging testimony! See all the testimonies from the 2024 fall FTTL graduation here.
