{"id":9336,"date":"2025-07-13T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=9336"},"modified":"2025-07-12T10:57:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T16:57:15","slug":"abiding-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=9336","title":{"rendered":"Abiding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=9333\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Yesterday<\/a>, I offered an acrostic on ARTFULLY as a complement to <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=9331\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sahil Bloom&#8217;s blog on Artful Living<\/a>. The acrostic is something I developed a few years ago to encourage me in a few spiritual disciplines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>A<\/strong>biding in Christ <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>R<\/strong>ejoicing\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>T<\/strong>hankful<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>F<\/strong>ocused <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>U<\/strong>nattached <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>L<\/strong>oving <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>L<\/strong>ife-giving <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Y<\/strong>ielded <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let&#8217;s look at &#8220;Abide&#8221; first, and I don&#8217;t think I can do better than what I wrote almost three years ago&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Most of the uses of \u201cabide\u201d are in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=John+15%3A1+-+16&amp;version=ESV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">John 15<\/a>: the vine and the branches (verses 1 \u2013 16). Here are just a few observations with little comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAbide\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit\u2026unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me (4)<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Whoever abides in me and I in him\u2026bears much fruit. (5)<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away (6)<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask\u2026 (7)<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Abide in my love. (9)<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love just as I have kept my Father\u2019s commandments and abide in his love. (10)<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide\u2026 (16)<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIf anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away\u201d (6) \u2013 best we figure out what&nbsp;<em>abide&nbsp;<\/em>means and do it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If I\u2019m not bearing \u201cmuch fruit,\u201d I\u2019m not abiding. (5) (That\u2019s basic mathematical logic: \u201cIF anyone abides in me and I in him, he bears fruit.\u201d Abiding =&gt; Fruit. Therefore, No fruit =&gt; No abiding.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are promises for those who abide:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Answered prayer (7, 16)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Love (9, 10)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Joy (11)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This \u201cabiding\u201d section includes commands:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Abide: \u201cAbide in me and I in you\u2026\u201d (4)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Obey: \u201cIf you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love\u2026\u201d (10)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Love: \u201cThis is my commandment that you love one another\u2026\u201d (12)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Bear fruit: \u201cI have appointed you to go and bear fruit\u2026\u201d (16)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A rich section. Books, probably libraries, have been written about it. But of all the metaphors Jesus used, this one of abiding as a branch does in a vine seems the most permanent. Jesus is the bread of life, but I can eat bread today and not eat bread tomorrow. He is the living water, and, again, I can take a drink or not. He\u2019s the light, but I can close my eyes or open them. Abiding as a branch in a vine doesn\u2019t seem like something one can turn on or off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, \u201cIf you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples\u2026 (John 8.31, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>And now, little children,&nbsp;abide&nbsp;in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. (1 John 2.28, ESV)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, I offered an acrostic on ARTFULLY as a complement to Sahil Bloom&#8217;s blog on Artful Living. The acrostic is something I developed a few years ago to encourage me in a few spiritual disciplines. Let&#8217;s look at &#8220;Abide&#8221; first, and I don&#8217;t think I can do better than what I wrote almost three years &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=9336\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Abiding<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-2qA","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9337,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9336\/revisions\/9337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}