"ThursdayReflection"
15th February 2024
'John Piper says'
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Prayer Vocalizes Our Abiding
in Christ
Today I want to try to help us experience prayer as the vocalization of abiding in Christ.
First, there is the vocalization of our need and our desire to be attached to Christ, like a branch to a vine.
I have in mind that first cry when God saved us by putting a taste for his life-giving, love-giving, joy-giving sap on the tongue of our souls so that we cried out, "Yes, Lord, yes. I want this! Make me yours. Fasten me to yourself, branch to vine, forever."
And I also have in mind the recurring cry, when we feel like our branch is withering, that says, "Hold on to me. Keep me in the vine. Don't let me go. Be my life. If there's a disease in me, disenchanting me with the all-satisfying sap of yourself, then heal me, prune me, and cause your life to surge in me again."
That's the first way that prayer vocalizes abiding in Christ: it is both the first cry to become attached to the vine and the recurring cry to remain attached to the vine.
Second, there is the daily vocalization of our thankful, happy, desperate dependence - moment by moment - on his ever-flowing sap of life.
This isn't the desperate cry of, "Keep me!" This is the happy, thankful, expression of confident trust.
Let's start with the picture in John 15:5:
"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing."
The picture is of the disciple of Jesus as a branch and Jesus as the vine.
So, the least we can say is that abiding in Christ is the experience of getting our life from Christ.
The sap of life flows into the branch if the branch is abiding, remaining in the vine.
If there is no attachment to the vine, then there is no life in the branch.
A second way to describe the experience of abiding is to say that we remain in the love of Christ. John 15:9:
"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love."
So the 'life-giving' attachment to the vine can be described as a 'love-giving' attachment to the vine.
The vine loves the branches. Love is flowing to the branches. The life that flows to the branches is the life of love.
So now the command "Abide in me" (John 15:4) and the implicit command "Abide in my life, which flows to you" become a little more concrete.
Essentially God is saying, "Keep on receiving and welcoming and enjoying and trusting and treasuring my love."
That is the experience of abiding in the vine.
The phrase "my words abide in you" stands in the place where Jesus himself stood in John 15:4:
"Abide in me, and I in you."
We see that "I, Jesus, abiding in you" becomes "my words abiding in you."
"The experience of abiding in Christ is not only abiding in his life and love, but also in his word."
And it is not just his words abiding in us, but us abiding in his words - just like we abide in him.
According to John , "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples."
So the experience of abiding in Christ is not only abiding in his life, and abiding in his love, but also abiding in his word.
I take this to mean that the life and the love that flow from the vine into the branches are communicated to us and experienced by us through the word of Christ.
The life of Jesus and the love of Jesus accomplish nothing in our lives apart from the word of Jesus.
We know experiences to be from Christ because of the word of Christ.
For he says,
"The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (John 6:63).
And so we respond,
"You have the words of eternal life"
Therefore, we abide in Christ - we abide in his life and in his love - by receiving and welcoming and understanding and believing the reality mediated by the words of Christ.
Un-edited version avaiable, on request
John Piper
(@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary.
For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God
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