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Abide In Me

I don’t know why but I was pondering the meaning of the word “abide” in the New Testament. For example, the Lord said,

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me….If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall bask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”

The word “abide” in the Greek means to live, to stay, to remain. It denotes a sense of permanence and perseverance notwithstanding adversity. Just as the branches receive life and sustenance from and through the vine, our connection to Him is whole and complete—forever.

We abide in Him when we “walk as He walked, and we know that we are abiding in him “by the Spirit which He hath given us.”

The following story shared by Elder Timothy Dyches in the April 2021 conference illustrates abiding in Christ. He said,

“I come from goodly parents and from faithful ancestors who responded to the light of Jesus Christ and His gospel, and it blessed their lives and the generations that have followed with spiritual resilience. My dad often talked about his father, Milo T Dyches, and shared how his faith in God was a light to him day and night. Grandpa was a forest ranger and often rode alone in the mountains, entrusting his life without question to God’s direction and care. Late one fall, Grandpa was alone in the high mountains. Winter had already shown its face when he saddled one of his favorite horses, old Prince, and rode to a sawmill to scale and measure logs before they could be sawed into lumber. At dusk, he finished his work and climbed back into the saddle. By then, the temperature had plummeted, and a fierce winter snowstorm was engulfing the mountain. With neither light nor path to guide him, he turned Prince in a direction he thought would lead them back to the ranger station.

After traveling miles in the dark, Prince slowed, then stopped. Grandpa repeatedly urged Prince forward, but the horse refused. With blinding snow swirling around them, Grandpa realized he needed God’s help. As he had done throughout his life, he humbly “ask[ed] in faith, nothing wavering.”24 A still, small voice answered, “Milo, give Prince his head.” Grandpa obeyed, and as he lightened his hold on the reins, Prince swung around and plodded off in a different direction. Hours later, Prince again halted and lowered his head. Through the driving snow, Grandpa saw that they had safely arrived at the gate of the ranger station. With the morning sun, Grandpa retraced the faint tracks of Prince in the snow. He drew a deep breath when he found where he had given Prince his head: it was the very brink of a lofty mountain cliff, where a single step forward would have plunged both horse and rider to their deaths in the rugged rocks below. Based on that experience and many others, Grandpa counseled, “The best and greatest partner you will ever have is your Father in Heaven.””

Sources:

John 15: 4 & 7

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2004/05/abide-in-me?lang=eng

Elder Holland said, “Abide in me” is an understandable and beautiful enough concept in the elegant English of the King James Bible, but “abide” is not a word we use much anymore. So I gained even more appreciation for this admonition from the Lord when I was introduced to the translation of this passage in another language. In Spanish that familiar phrase is rendered “permaneced en mi.” Like the English verb “abide,” permanecer means “to remain, to stay,” but even gringos like me can hear the root cognate there of “permanence.” The sense of this then is “stay—but stay forever.”

1 John 2:6

1 John 3:24

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2021/04/53dyches?lang=eng