John 15:4,5 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless your abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
*the word abide means to remain
I love this section of scripture. Truth found in the above verses is becoming more and more real to me. Because of health issues and the nature of them, I’ve had to spend a lot of time alone. Consequently, at times I have found myself thinking that I wasn’t bearing fruit for God because I was inactive. I use to think that fruit represented the people to whom I ministered. Concerning this issue, the Lord began to speak to me and to give me new revelation. To abide means to remain, or to stay, and abiding is a term the Holy Spirit chose to help explain our union with Christ. Simply, He abides in us and we in Him because we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Therefore, the fruit that you and I display is the very life and character of Christ Himself. Hence, for us to exhibit fruit, we have to simply abide in Him no matter what we are doing or not doing. Abiding in Christ means that by faith you and I are resting(true rest is not inactivity but His activity) in His presence and we are trusting Him for provision in every situation. As a result, we can bear fruit even in the most mundane situations.