The Best Advice I Could Give You

On day two of our track, we hear a few words from Jesus that bring us new hope. Maybe you are in an atmosphere of drought right now, maybe you are just coming out of that kind of season, or perhaps you are about to face one; no matter what stage of life you are in, it's crucial that you begin to internalize this strategy for perseverance today. Let's get started.

Words of truth are nourishment for our souls and put bluntly, crucial for a life spent following Jesus. Why? Without an ongoing and active source of this truth coming up inside of you, you won't have the sustained hope, peace, joy, contentment, grace, or fulfillment that life will require when a drought comes. We need something on the inside that doesn't need something from the outside to keep us steady and strong.

This is so important that on the day before Jesus’ death, a death He knew was on the way, He focused intensely on teaching His disciples this very principle. Jesus knew all the disciples’ hopes were pinned on Him and that they would experience immense disappointment in the hours to come as he would arrested, tried, and sentenced to death.

What do you do when someone you love only has a few more words available for you before they are going to leave? You lean in and intently listen with all that you have so as not to miss a single word. As you read, watch as the disciples are doing just this as Jesus is intentionally sharing with them exactly what He wants them to know before He is crucified, raised, and ascended away from them.

Jesus has just finished the Last Supper. He washed the disciples' feet and predicted that he would be betrayed by one he loved. Jesus assured their hearts not to be troubled and reminded them that He would prepare a place for them. He told them He would ask His Father to send another Helper to come. He promised to leave peace with them, and on the heels of all of this, their beloved teacher led them out of the city to the Mount of Olives.

The route they would have taken to get the the Garden of Gethsemane would have been familiar to them. They would have passed grapes on the vine. Vineyards represented joy, festivities, and the abundance of community. If you close your eyes you can imagine the scene as Jesus stopped at one of those vineyards and spoke these specific seven words from John 15 to them. The words that would come to continually nourish them through all years to come. "Abide in me, and I in you."

Simple, yet profound in its implication. This is one of the most critical messages Jesus leaves with His disciples. Abide in Him, and He promises to abide in them. When everything is lost, Jesus says there is only one thing that would give them the continuous sustenance and nourishment they would need to have a well of joy and hope that overrides in times like these, and He says the same thing to us today: "Abide in me, and I in you."