What does it mean to Abide?
If you’re a reader or follower of Our Daily Bread Ministries, it should be no surprise to you that reading the Bible is a key and integral part of faith. But, let’s be honest. It’s not always the easiest thing to do. In our hurried, busy lives, when we do make time to spend with God and read His Word, we can often skim through what we’re reading – “I just need to finish the chapter, then spend some time praying, before I start my day.” We know that it shouldn’t be this way, but how do we begin to learn more from the verses we read? How does what we read start to sink in and be something that we might actually meditate on “day and night”, as Joshua 1 tells us?
Psalm 1 paints the image of people who delight in God’s Word, thinking about it night and day, as a tree that is planted by a stream; fruitful, unwithering, secure. That tree is us – the stream is the Word of God, and without being constantly fed and nourished by the Word, we will eventually wither.
This is what Jesus is talking about in John 15, when He talks about the vine and the branches. We, the branches, will bear fruit if we remain in Him, and if His words remain in us. Or, as another translation puts it, if we “Abide in Him” and His words.
So that’s what we’re doing. Through this new series, available in video, audio, and as a written article, we want to look at the passage in the Our Daily Bread devotional each Monday, and abide in that Scripture. Spend more time in it, read it in a way that is more memorable and enduring, rather than fleeting. We’re not going to try and give you all the answers to a Bible study on that passage, but instead, together we’ll journey through the passage in a way that helps us to better engage with it, and hopefully, learn something new from God in the process.
