Settling In

John 15: 1-4
"I am the vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 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."

I have heard this scripture so many times. However, today I experienced it in a new way. I couldn't stop thinking about the word 'abide'. How does one 'abide' in Jesus? We can strive all day long to try to achieve the things that we think Jesus would want us to do, but unless we are 'abiding' in Him, we often come up short. Andy Stanley once made this statement: "The character of Christ is not manufactured by us. It's being produced through us." It's through 'abiding' in Jesus that we are vehicles of His grace and power. We can't make it up and we can't create it ourselves.

I love words. The thesaurus is often my first stop as I delve deeper into a concept. I was interested in dissecting this idea of 'abide'. So here it is: accept, acknowledge, concede, consent, defer, endure, hang in there, hang tough with, live with, receive, sit tight, stand, swallow, take, bunk out, dwell, inhabit, lodge, nest, reside, settle, stay, continue, persevere, persist, survive, anticipate, expect, linger, rest, sojourn, stick around, stop, wait.

Wow. By abiding in Jesus I can see how the character of Christ can be produced through me. My favorite? Settle. Lord Jesus, my greatest desire is to settle in with You. What's your favorite?