When someone asks you “”Where do you live?” How do you answer? I usually say, “Beaumont, California” or my subdivision if I’m not in Beaumont. I don’t say if I live in a house, an apartment, or on the street.

Pilate asked Jesus, “Where are you from?” but Jesus gave no reply in John 19:9.

How would you respond if someone asked you where your heart abides? 

Jesus tells us that if we abide in His Word, we are His disciples, John 8:31. We must continue to meditate on God’s Word day and night, just as God told Joshua to meditate on it after Moses died, and Joshua was preparing to take the Israelites into the Promised Land. The Word of God empowers us to know God’s truth, not the world’s truth, and that sets us free from the shackles of this present world, so that we can walk in this world as citizens of the kingdom of God.

We’re not walking in this world alone, though. We have the Holy Spirit abiding in us to teach us, guide us, correct us, convict us when we sin, show us the truth, and even perfect our prayers on their way to the Father.

Jesus said, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. John 14:16-17

Jesus existed with God from before time began. The Bible tells us that He was with God and that Jesus was God and that He created the world.

In Jesus was life, and this life is the Light of His followers. I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness. John 12:46

Not everyone received the Light, but those who did also became the children of God.

When the time was right, Jesus emptied Himself of the glory that He enjoyed with God, and entered the world as a man, a man who knew no sin, walking in a sinful world.

God sent Jesus into the world, and yet, He was not of this world. Every word He uttered, and everything He did came from God. He did nothing on His own. He and the Father and the Holy Spirit remained One. Jesus abided in the Father, and the Father abided in Jesus. Perfect unity.

God sent Jesus into the world because He loved you and me so much that He wanted to make it possible for you and me to live with Him forever. That meant that the price for our sins, death and separation from God, must be paid. Since that price required death, a sacrifice of perfection, Jesus was the only One who could pay that price.

For a moment in time, the Perfect unity was broken, and the abiding was cut off, until the price was paid, and death was conquered.

Jesus came preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.“ Matthew 4:17

Jesus Healing the Blind and Raising Lazarus from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jesus was in our midst. He came healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, touching the leper, raising the dead, turning water into wine, walking on water, stilling the storm, and feeding the multitudes. He proclaimed the acceptable year of the Lord. He came to die on the cross for your sins and my sins. He came to be buried in a borrowed tomb. He came to be raised from the dead three days later. Jesus came to ascend to heaven where He sits at the right hand of God advocating for you and for me, reminding God that He paid the price for your sins and for my sins. Jesus is telling the Father that we are righteous through His blood.

If we accept the free gift of Jesus, everlasting life with Him, we will become new creations, and our bodies will become the temple of the Holy Spirit as He abides in us.

Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches, abiding in Him. Because we abide in Him, we will produce fruit. He does it all. We are called to abide in Him, abide in His Word, obey His commandments. Out of abiding in Jesus, we will know His divine love, and that love will permeate our very beings. Love for God and for our neighbors encompasses all the Law, for God is love.

If we truly abide in Jesus as Jesus abides in the Father, and the Holy Spirit abides in us, we will love as Jesus loves; we will bear fruit as Jesus bears fruit; we will tend Jesus’ lambs and sheep, and we will shepherd Jesus’ sheep as He commanded Peter.

We will love one another and be unified. We cannot do it ourselves, only by the work of the Holy Spirit in us.

Abiding through Jesus, that is the key!

My Prayer

Our heavenly Father, thank You for sending Your Son, Jesus, to come to the world to show us the way, to show us compassion, to manifest You, Your glory, and Your works. Thank You for Your amazing love, a love that gave all, a love that gave Your own dear Son. Father, thank You for abiding in Jesus, so that we can abide in Him, and the Holy Spirit can abide in us. Teach us to abide in Your Word. Empower us to abide in Jesus, so that we obey You and cling to Jesus, our vine. Prune us and nourish us, so that we produce much fruit for You. Fill us with increasing love for You, for our neighbors, and for our brothers and sisters in Jesus. We love You, Father, and give You our lives. Create great fruit in our lives, so that we will glorify You. In Jesus’ Name, we pray. Amen.

Please share your tips on how you abide in Jesus in the comment section.