— Day 5 —

It Is As You Came to
Him, by Faith

As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in
Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith,
as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

Colossians 2:6–7

In these words the apostle teaches us an important lesson, that it is not only by faith that we first come to Christ and are united to Him but also by faith that we are to be rooted and established in our union with Christ. Faith is essential not only for the commencement, but also for the progress of the spiritual life. Abiding in Jesus can only be by faith.

There are sincere Christians who do not understand this; or, if they admit it in theory, they fail to realize its application in practice. They are very zealous for a free gospel in which our first acceptance of Christ and justification is by faith alone. But after this they think everything depends on our diligence and faithfulness. While most firmly grasp the truth ‘‘The sinner is justified by faith’’ (Galatians 2:16), they rarely find a place for the larger truth, ‘‘The just shall live by faith’’ (Romans 1:17). They have not understood what a perfect Savior Jesus is, and how He will each day do for the sinner just as much as He did the first day he came to Him. They do not know that the life of grace is always and only a life of faith, and that in the relationship to Jesus the one daily and unceasing duty of the disciple is to believe, because believing is the one channel through which divine grace and strength flow out into the heart of His people.

The old nature of the believer remains evil and sinful to the last; it is only as he daily comes, empty and helpless, to his Savior to receive His life and strength, that he can bring forth fruits of righteousness to the glory of God. Therefore it is: ‘‘As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.’’ As you came to Jesus, so abide in Him, by faith.

And if you would know how faith is to be exercised in this abiding, how you can be rooted more deeply and firmly in Him, you will need to look back to the time when you first received Him. You remember well the obstacles that appeared to be in the way of your believing. There was first your corruption and guilt; it appeared impossible that the promise of pardon and love could be for a sinner like you. Then there was the sense of weakness and death: You did not feel the power necessary for the surrender and the trust to which you were called. And then there was the future: You did not dare to imagine you could be a disciple of Jesus while you felt so unable to stand. You were sure you would quickly revert to unfaithfulness and fall. These difficulties were like mountains in your way. And how were they removed? Simply by the word of God. That word compelled you to believe that despite guilt in the past, weakness in the present, and unfaithfulness in the future, the promise was sure that Jesus would accept you and save you. On that word you ventured to come, and were not deceived: You found that Jesus did indeed accept and save you.

Now apply this, your experience in coming to Jesus, to abiding in Him. Now, as then, the temptations to keep you from believing are many. When you think of your sins since you became a disciple, your heart is cast down with shame, and it looks as if it were too much to expect that Jesus would indeed receive you into perfect intimacy and the full enjoyment of His holy love. When you think how utterly, in times past, you have failed to keep the most sacred vows, the consciousness of present weakness makes you tremble at the very idea of answering the Savior’s command with the promise ‘‘Lord, from now on I will abide in you.’’ And when you set before yourself the life of love and joy, of holiness and fruitfulness, which in the future are to flow from abiding in Him, it is as if it only serves to make you still more hopeless; you are sure you can never attain to it. You know yourself too well. There is no use expecting it, only to be disappointed; a life fully and wholly abiding in Jesus is not for you.

Oh, that you would learn a lesson from the time of your first coming to the Savior! Remember, dear one, how you were then led—contrary to all that your experience, your feelings, and even your sober judgment said—to take Jesus at His word, and how you were not disappointed. He did receive you, and pardon you; He did love you, and save you. And if He did this for you when you were an enemy and a stranger, now that you are His own, will He not much more fulfill His promise? (See Romans 5:10.) Oh, that you would come and begin simply to listen to His word, and to ask only one question: Does He really mean that I can abide in Him? The answer His word gives is so simple and so sure: By His almighty grace you are now in Him; that same almighty grace will indeed enable you to abide in Him. By faith you became a partaker of the initial grace; by that same faith you can enjoy the continuous grace of abiding in Him.

And if you ask what exactly it is that you now have to believe that you may abide in Him, the answer is not difficult. Believe first of all what He says: ‘‘I am the Vine.’’ The safety and the fruitfulness of the branch depend upon the strength of the vine. Do not think so much of yourself as a branch, nor of the abiding as your duty, until you have first had your soul filled with faith in what Christ as the Vine is. He really will be to you all that a vine can be—holding you fast, nourishing you, and making himself responsible every moment for your growth and your fruit. Take time to know, set yourself to believe heartily: My Vine, on whom I can depend for all I need, is Christ. A large, strong vine bears a weak branch and holds it more than the branch holds the vine. Ask the Father by the Holy Spirit to reveal to you what a glorious, loving, mighty Christ this is, in whom you have your place and your life; it is faith in what Christ is, more than anything else, that will keep you abiding in Him. A soul filled with large thoughts of the Vine will be a strong branch and will abide confidently in Him. Turn your attention to Jesus and exercise your faith in Him as the True Vine.

And then, when Faith can confidently say, ‘‘He is my Vine,’’ let it further say, ‘‘I am His branch, I am in Him.’’ I speak to those who say they are Christ’s disciples, and on them I cannot too earnestly press the importance of exercising their faith in saying, ‘‘I am in Him.’’ It makes abiding so simple. If I realize clearly as I meditate: Now I am in Him, I see at once that there is nothing lacking but my consent to be what He has made me, to remain where He has placed me. I am in Christ : This simple thought, carefully, prayerfully, believingly uttered, removes the fear that there is yet some great attainment to be reached. No, I am in Christ, my blessed Savior. His love has prepared a home for me with himself. When He says, ‘‘Abide in My love,’’ His power has undertaken to open the door and to keep me in this home He has prepared for me, if I will but consent. I am in Christ : now all I need to say is, ‘‘Savior, I thank you for this wondrous grace. I consent; I yield myself to your gracious keeping; I do abide in you.’’

It is astonishing how such faith will work out all that is further implied in abiding in Christ. There is in the Christian life a great need for watchfulness and prayer, of self-denial, obedience, and diligence. But ‘‘all things are possible to him who believes’’ (Mark 9:23). ‘‘This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith’’(1 John 5:4). It is faith that continually closes its eyes to the weakness of the creature, and finds its joy in the sufficiency of an almighty Savior, that makes the soul strong and glad. It gives itself up to be led by the Holy Spirit into an ever-deeper appreciation of that wonderful Savior given to us by God. This faith follows the leading of the Spirit from page to page of the blessed Word with the one desire to take each revelation of what Jesus is and what He promises as its nourishment and its life. In accordance with the promise ‘‘If what you have heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father’’ (1 John 2:24), you will live ‘‘by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God’’ (Matthew 4:4). And so the Word makes us strong with the strength of God, to enable us to abide in Christ.

Believer, if you would abide in Christ: only believe. Believe always; believe now. Bow even now before your Lord, and say to Him in childlike faith that, because He is your Vine and you are His branch, you will this day abide in Him.

Note: It is perhaps necessary to say, for the sake of young or doubting Christians, that there is something more necessary than the effort to exercise faith in each separate promise that is brought to our attention. What is of even greater importance is the cultivation of a trustful disposition toward God, the habit of always thinking of Him, of His ways and His works, with confidence and hope. In such soil alone can individual promises take root and grow.