The Price of Abiding

Are you living with God? Do you know how to live with God? Are there instructions on how to live with God?

To live with someone, at least temporarily, can mean to abide. People ask, “Where do you live?” We don’t say, “Where is your abode?” It usually denotes a place. In that place are things and other people.

But to abide in the Bible takes on a meaning much deeper than how we view it today.

The word abide is used 118 times in the New Testament and is most often used in the book of John. We know the disciple John was the youngest, lived the longest and was the one who laid his head on Jesus' chest. His Gospel differs from the other three Gospels in many ways, but largely because John begins by seeing Jesus as God.

His writings place Jesus in Judea, expound on Jesus’ teachings, and excludes parables. John emphasizes loving others as Christ loves us. For example, in John 13:1 we read, Now, before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour has come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. John, the only Gospel that records the washing of the disciples' feet.

He washes their feet, reveals more of the Father to them, explains how He and the Father dwell together, and gives them His peace. All the while setting up a conversation to show them how to abide in Him. You could say, how to dwell in Jesus, how to be present in Jesus, how to be held and kept in Jesus (John 15).

A friend recently called my attention to the word abide in a way I had not seen before. In her studies, God showed her the word ‘Bid’ in the middle of the word abide. Then He began to tell her about the high price He paid for her sins to be forgiven. He was the highest ‘bidder’ for her life and all the lives who would believe in Him. Within His bid, we can now abide -forever – in Christ, Who is God, Who is Love

We take communion to remember - to remember that God came to the earth in the flesh as His Son, to be born, to live, and to die for our sins, making a way for us to abide in Him. He is coming back again (I Corinthians 11:22-26). Now the resurrected Jesus shows us by the Holy Spirit what abiding in Christ Jesus looks like by abiding in God’s love.

In First Corinthians 13, the Love Chapter, Paul gives a beautiful description of love. Yes, it is how God loves. Yes, we witnessed Jesus in that same love as we read the Gospels. And, yes, that same love is available to you and me as we choose to abide, to dwell, to be present with the Lord because His bid was the highest to ‘buy us back’ so we can aBIDe with Him forever.

Finally, let’s review what love is: I Corinthians 13

1. Love is long-suffering or patient.

2. Love is kind and comes from humility. 

3. Love does not envy, is not jealous.

4. Love does not parade itself and is not puffed up. 

5. Love is not rude or arrogant.

6. Love seeks not its own.

7. Love is not easily provoked.

8. Love thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, and rejoices in the truth.

9. Love bears all things.

10. Love believes all things.

11. Love hopes all things. 

12. Love endures all things.

13. Love never fails!

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”(Isaiah 9:6).

Merry Christmas! Until next time, remember the heart of the matter is a matter of the heart!

Dr. Michele / December 22, 2024