Abiding

^’^ Abide in me and I in — Johnxv:3.

And now, little children, abide in Him: that when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. — 1 Jno. ii: 28.

T would seem as though John meant that only little children could abide in Him; that only when we get to be little can we know the Lord in His fullness; only when we cease from our manly and womanly strength and become dependent can we know His strength and independence as our support and stay. John counted himself among the little children, because he says ‘we” when he addresses us. He was indeed a little child in spirit from the time Boanerges died and John laid his head on Jesus’ breast to be strong no more in himself, and to be seen no more apart from the enfolding arms of Jesus.

We have seen Christ in His personal glory; we have seen what it is to be in Him and to have Him in us, and now we want to have it stereotyped. When a man writes a book he puts it in stereotype to last forever; so John says,” Little children abide in Him, that when He shall appear we may have confidence.’’

Let us speak very particularly and plainly about how we may maintain this abiding. You have surrendered; you have given up your strength as well as your will; you have consented that henceforth He shall support your Mfe. Like a true bride you have given up your very person, your name, your employment, so that now He is to be your Lord and your Provider; your very life is merged in Him, your personality is united in Him, and He becomes your Head and your All in All. Now, beloved, how is this to be maintained? He says we are to abide, and He will abide in some sense according to our abiding. ‘^ Abide in me and I in you;” as much as to say, ‘’If you will abide in me, there will be no difficulty about my abiding in you.”

Let us speak of some of the difficulties in this life of abiding.

LIVE BY THE MOMENT.

First, it must be a momentary life, not a current that flows on through its own momentum; but it is to be a succession of little acts and developments. You have Him for the moment, and you have Him perfectly, you are perfectly saved this moment; you are victorious this moment; and that which fills this moment is large enough to fill the next, so that if you shall renew this fellowship every moment, you shall abide in Him. Have you learned this? The failures in your life mostly come through lost moments, broken stitches, little interstices, little cleavings in the rock where the drops of water trickle down and run into a torrent; but if you lose no steps and no victories, you shall abide in constant triumph.

First, then, learn this secret, that you are.

not sanctified for all time so that there will be no more need for grace and victory; but you have grace for this moment, and the next moment, and by the time life is spent, you shall have had a whole ocean of His grace. It may be a very little trickling stream at first; but let it flow on every moment, and it shall become a boundless ocean before its course is done.

DEFINITE ACTS OF WILL.

Next, this abiding must be established by a succession of definite acts of will, and of real, fixed, steadfast trust in Christ. It does not come as a spontaneous and irresistible impulse that carries you whether you will or not, but you have begun by an act of trust, and hold and repeat it until it becomes a habit. Now it is very important to realize this. A great many think, when they get a blessing, that it ought to sweep them on without further effort. It is not so. An act of will, an act of choice is the real helm of spiritual life. You were saved from sin by actually choosing Jesus as your Saviour; you were consecrated by definitely giving yourself and taking Him for everything. So now, beloved, you must get the helm fixed, and press on moment by moment still choosing to trust Christ, until at last it comes to be as natural as your breathing. It is like a man rescued from drowning; when they take him from the water breathing seems to be stopped; at first, when it returns, it is not spontaneous, but a succession of labored pumpings; they breathe the air in and they breathe the air out, perhaps for half an hour; then an involuntary action is noticed, and nature comes and makes the act spontaneous; and soon the man is breathing without thinking. But it came by a definite effort at first, that those lungs should act, and by-and-by it became spontaneous. So with Christ: if you would have this abiding in Him become spontaneous, you must make it a spiritual habit. The prophet speaks of the mind ‘stayed on Grod,’^ and David says, *’his heart is fixed,

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trusting in the Lord.” We begin by determining, and we obey Him no matter what it costs; and by-and-by the habit is established.

THE LAW OF HABIT.

Then comes the third principle; habit at length becomes established. Every habit grows out of a succession of little acts. No habit comes full-grown into your life; it grows like the roots of the tree, like the fibres of the flesh, or as the morsels of food you swallow are absorbed into your life. You see a man going steadily along in a course of life, but that course of life was established by the habit of years. The stenographer at my side sits down and takes these words as fast as I speak them. At first it was clumsy and slow work; but at length it became a habit, and now he does not have to stop and think how to make a character; they come to him as naturally as the words come to my lips. So it is with writing; we remember how painfully at first we had to hold the pen but we now dash off our signature, and it is always the same; our friends know it, our banker knows it; and it can*be identified as ours. How did it come about? Because for years we have made the same marks. This is the reason, beloved, that it pays to plod; the habit becomes at length a necessity, and becomes easier as it grows.

It is so with evil; it is easier for a man to go down the longer he goes down, and it is easier for him to go up the longer he goes up. And so we hear some men praising the Lord instinctively; they have done it so much that it has become natural. And so it is with looking to Jesus; it is like the movement of the eye, the lid moves instantly, and the Bible uses it as a figure of God’s care. “He shall keep you as the apple of the eye.” Before the dust can hurt the eye, the little curtain falls over the ten-, der ball. So we find ourselves in life instinctively holding our tongues when we would have felt like talking. So we can discern the very scent of evil before it comes, instinctively sending a prayer to heaven before the danger reaches us. Thus also will, the habit of obedience be formed; it comes by doing steadily, persistently and faithfully what the Lord would have you do. He is putting you to school in these little trials, until He gets the habit confirmed, and made easy, and natural.

SELF-REPRESSION.

Again, if we would abide in Christ we must continually study to have no confidence in self. Self -repression must be ever the prime necessity of Divine fullness and efficiency. Now you know how quickly you spring to the front when any emergency arises. You know how easy it was for Peter to spring then with his sword drawn before he knew whether he was able to meet the foe or not. When something in which you are interested comes up, you say what you think under some sudden impulse, and then perhaps you have weeks of taking back your thought, and taking the Lord’s instead. It is only when we get out of the way of the Lord that He can use us. And so, beloved, this abiding in Christ, means abiding out of self, always suspending your will about everything until you have looked at it and said: ‘’ Lord, what is your will? what is your thought about it?” When you have got that, you and He are not at crosspurposes; and there is a blessed sense of harmony. Those who thus abide in Christ have the habit of reserve and quiet; they are not rattling and reckless talkers, they will not always have an opinion about everything, and they will not always know what they are going to do. There will be a deferential holding back of judgment, and walking softly with God. It is our headlong, impulsive spirit that keeps us so constantly from hearing and following the Lord.

DEPENDENCE.

Again, if we would abide in Christ, we must remember that Christ has undertaken not one or two things, the emergencies of life, but everything; and so we must cultivate the habit of dependence on Christ for everything. It is falling back on Him and finding Him everywhere; recognizing that Christ has undertaken the business of your Christian life, and there is not a difficulty that comes up, but He has undertaken to carry you through; He ha become responsible if you let Him have His way and hold the reins, and you just rest.

RECOGNIZING HIS PRESENCE

Again, if you abide in Christ, you must cultivate the habit of always recognizing Him as near, always at hand in your heart of hearts, so that you need not get on your knees and have an awful time to find Him, reaching out to the distant heavens and wondering where He has gone; but He is right here; His throne is in your heart; His resources are at hand. The Master is here; just speak to Him as with you now. There may be no delicious sensation of God’s presence, but just accept the fact that the Spirit of God is in your heart, and act and speak accordingly. Bring everything to Him, and soon the consciousness will be real and delightful. We do not begin with the feeling, we begin with acting as though He were here. So, beloved, if you would abide in Christ, treat Him as though He were at home with you; as though He were in you, and you in Him, and He will respond to your trust, and honor your confidence.

GOD IN EVERYTHING.

Again, if you would abide in Christ, you must recognize that somehow Christ is in everything that comes in yourhfe; and that everything that comes in the course of Providence is in some sense connected with the will of God. That trying circumstance was not chance, something with which Christ had nothing to do, and which you can only protest against and wonder how God can sit on the throne and let such things be. You must believe that God led in it, and though the floods have lifted up their heads on high, yet God sits on the throne, and is mightier than the great sea billows and the noise of many waters. You must believe that He will cause the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder thereof will He restrain. You may say: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the water thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.” I do not say that you are to regard everything as the very best thing that you would choose, or the very best thing that God ultimately has for you; but it is allowed, either that God may show you His power to overcome it, or else that it may teach you some lesson of hoKness, of trust, of tranquility, of courage. It is something that under the circumstances fits into God’s purposes; and therefore you are not to look for different circumstances, but to conquer in these already around you. You are not to run away, and say: “I will abide in Christ when I get where I want to be,” but you must abide with Christ in the ship and the storm, as well as in the harbor of blessing. Recognize that everything is permitted to God, and that He is able to make all things work together; and not only so, but to make you know they are for your good, and that they are working out His purposes.

ATATCH THE OUTWARD SENSES.

Again, if you would abide in Christ, we must be very watchful of our senses. There is nothing that so easily sets us wandering, and leads us out into dangerous fields, and by-path meadows, as the senses of the body. How often our eyes will take us away! Walking down the street you find a thousand things to call you away from a state of recollection. I do not believe it is possible for us to take everything in in this life. Some peoples’ eyes are like a spider’s, they see behind and before and on every side.

You know Solomon says: ‘’Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.” It is this letting the world in, no matter by what door it comes, that separates us from the presence of our Lord. So with our ears. If you listen to one-hundreth part of the conversation even of Christians you will be thoroughly defiled; and so you have to hold your ears, and your eyes, and live in a little circle; you have not to manage half so mang things as you undertake to sometimes, and about which you have so much anxiety. I sometimes illustrate it by a little figure which I told one day to a friend whose hand was trying to hold the reins of every horse that was running away, whose eyes were all around the heavens and the earth, and whose ears were as busy as if they were listening to the wires at the Union Telephone Station, with voices coming from the east, and from the west, and from the north and south. It is so with many of us; we have got despatches coming to us every hour of the day and they are like some of the telegrams that come to the columns of our daily newspapers. Well, I said to this friend: ^’ There is a little spider called the water spider, and it lives in the water, away down in the mud lake of the marsh. It just goes down a few inches, and lives there all the time. You ask how does it oreathe and live in the water? Oh, it has a strange apparatus by which it is able to gather around itself a bubble of air a few times larger than its body; it goes to the surface and fills it with air and goes down, and this little house forms an atmosphere for it, and there it builds its nest, and rears its young; and you know where the air is the water cannot get in, and so it is as safe in its little house as if built of stone; and with the dark water around it, it is just as pure as if it lived above in the clear air of heaven.” I said to this friend: “You just get into your little bubble and stay ihere. Take from Jesus the life He has for you and live it simply and faithfully and don’t go spluttering around the whole pool. If the spider did, the bubble would break, and it would perish with its young. You stay in your own little circle, Jesus and you, and you will have plenty to do, and it will be dry as a nest, and sweet as the air of heaven; and although there is sin around you, and hell beneath you, and although men are striving and tempting and sinning, you in your little circle will be as safe as if in heaven.”

INTERNAL PRAYER.

Again, if we would abide in Him we must cultivate the habit of internal prayer, and communing with God in the heart. We must know the meaning of such words as ‘God is a spirit, and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” ^’In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God concerning you.” This habit of momentary prayer, not in words, but in thought, is one of the secrets of abiding. There is an old word the mystics used; — I like it; — it is the word “recollection.” We would call it a collected spirit.

Dear old Fenelon talks about it, and bids us keep a recollected spirit. This is the opposite of a runaway spirit; — you know what that is. It is a spirit poised like yonder fowl in the air, its wings expanded ready to go anywhere, calmly collected, watching and resting too.

VIGILANCE.

I believe the very essence of this is another word, which I want to give you in connection with abiding; it is vigilance; it is watching; being wide awake. It is the opposite of drifting. It is the spirit of holding, and looking, and being ever on guard and yet sweetly held by the Lord. Now I do not mean that you have to do all the holding and watching; I mean you are to have your hand on the helm, and Christ will do the steering. It is like yonder brakes on the train — the brakeman only touches the lever and sets it in motion; the engineer does not have to make the train go, he has only to turn on the steam. You and I do not need to fight. We have only to give the word, and the powers of heaven follow it up if it is in the name of Jesus. So we shall ever he in fellowship with Him, moment by moment, until at last He becomes the element of our very life.

LET GOD LEAD.

Again, if we would abide in Christ we must stop trying to have God help us, and fall into God’s way and let Him lead. We must get the idea out of our spirit that we have chosen to serve Christ and we have got to have Christ help us. We must see, rather, that we have come into His channels and H^ is carrying us because He cannot go any other way. If you get on the bosom of the Mississippi you have to go down the river; if you are in the bosom of God, you have to go with Him. It would be hard to take the Mississippi and run it up to Chicago; it would be hard to compel God to run your way; but only surrender yourself to God, and your Hf e will be as strong as omnipotence and as sweet as heaven.

SURPRISES.

We should, perhaps, speak of the surprises that come. Sometimes the Lord lets sudden temptations sweep over you to put you on your guard; and if such things come into your life, take them as from Him, sent to put you on the watch and give you some hint, like the falHng of the eye-lash to let you know that the eye is threatened. But, beloved, if you keep very close to Christ I do not believe that these things will come as quickly as you think. They spring often from some heedlessness of your own. You were getting out of your way, and were not where the Lord expected you to be, and, perhaps, the surprise came to let you know that you had been in the enemy’s country. If we abide in Him, all evil will have to strike us through Him. Perhaps you were a little out of Him, and Christ let it come to frighten you back to Him, just as the shepard’s dogs are sent to drive the lambs into the fold. Better that you should get a little fall than ultimately to meet with disaster.

FAILURES.

But if, notwithstanding all your care, you make a mistake, if you have a disaster or a discouragement, don’t say, ^’I have lost my blessing. I have found this life impracticable;” but remember that if we who abide in Him confess our sins, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” ‘And now, little children, abide in Him.”

HOW TO MAKE GOD REAL.

A friend asked me the question the other day, how to make God real. God is not real to many people. He does not seem so real to that man as his difficult task; He does not seem so real to that woman as her hard work and her trials; He does not seem so real to that sufferer as his sickness. How shall we make Him real? The best manner I know is to take Him into the things that are real. That headache is real. Take Him into it and He will be as real as the headache, and a great deal more, for He will be there when the

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headache is gone. That trial is real, it has * burned itself into your life; God will be more so. That washing and ironing are real; take God into your home, and He will be as real. That is what makes Him real, — to hnk Him into your life as the banyan tree grows. First, it shoots up a branch to heaven, and then other branches grow back and down into the ground and become rooted in the earth, and by-and-by there are a hundred branches interwoven and interlaced from the ground so that the storm and the winds cannot disturb it, and even the simoon of the Indian Ocean cannot tear it up. It is rooted and bound together by hundreds of interlacing roots and branches. And so when God comes and saves a soul He plants one branch; but when He comes and dehvers, and helps in your difficulties, each one is another branch; and thus your life becomes rooted and bound to God by a hundred fibres, and all the power of hell cannot break it.

“Nearer and nearer still to me Thou living and loving Saviour be, Brighter the vision of thy face. More glorious still thy words of grace; TiU life shall be transformed to love, A heaven below, a heaven above.”