November 3

Abiding in Christ

“Ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you” (John 14:20).
“If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him” (John 14:23).
“Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4).

I have thought and thought and thought of Jesus in Bethlehem, and of Jesus on Calvary, and of Jesus upon the throne, and I have worshiped and loved and rejoiced exceedingly in Him, but all the time I wanted something better and something deeper and something nearer. . . .
The presence of Jesus by the Holy Ghost is meant to be unbroken, continual, and for ever. Is not that what your heart longs for?
—Andrew Murray.

Abide in me, I pray, and I in Thee;
From this good hour, oh! leave me nevermore:
Then shall the discord cease, the wound be healed,
The lifelong bleeding of the soul be o’er.

Abide in me; o’ershadow by Thy love
Each half-formed purpose and dark thought of sin
Quench, e’er it rise, each selfish, low desire,
And keep my soul as Thine, calm and divine.

As some rare perfume in a vase of clay
Pervades it with a fragrance not its own,
So, when Thou dwellest in a mortal soul,
All Heaven’s own sweetness seems around it thrown.

Abide in me. There have been moments blest
When I have heard Thy voice and felt Thy power:
Then evil lost its grasp; and passion, hushed,
Owned the divine enchantment of the hour.

These were but seasons beautiful and rare;
Abide in me, and they shall ever be:
Fulfill at once Thy precept and my prayer;
Come and abide in me, and I in Thee.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe.

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