I’ve walked by faith in Jesus for quite a while now, and I have matriculated among those who have done the same, and I have reached one conclusion that, I believe, is incontrovertible – We are who we are because of the fact that we live in Christ (See John 15). We abide in Him. We make our home in Him. In Him, we are shaped and formed and enabled to be who we are. Jesus and His church explain our lives. Without Jesus and without the Community shaped by Him, our lives make no sense; at least they shouldn’t make sense.

It is in saying Yes to Jesus’ invitation to live in Him that we find how He actually lives in us. Henri Nouwen said, “God is a God of the present and reveals to those who are willing to listen carefully to the moment in which they live the steps they are to take toward the future.”[1] We are in Christ and as we live the moments of our lives, made possible by living in Jesus, we find our strength, our nourishment, and even the direction we should go in moving into our future.

Jesus speaks of this kind of relationship in the metaphor of a branch abiding in the health of the vine. As the vine goes, so goes the branch. The branch doesn’t drive the vine; the vine drives the branch. In His metaphor Jesus is the Vine and his disciples are the branches. As the Vine goes, so goes the branch. What makes Jesus who Jesus is flows through the rightly connected and abiding branch.

The Word from Jesus is “Abide in Me, and I in you” (John 15:4). It is a mutual abiding. As we make our home in Jesus, He makes His home in us. The fruit of our lives comes as we abide in Jesus. The love that is in Him flows through us. His desire to keep the commandments of His Father flows through us and enables us to be faithful.

Why did Jesus teach these things. He said, “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your Joy may be made full” (John 15:11).

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[1] Henri J.M. Nouwen, In The Name Of Jesus (Crossroad: New York, 1989), 3-4.