The following article is an excerpt from Make Me Like Jesus by Michael Phillips.
Abide in me…These three words have always flowed over my soul like a cool mountain stream, soothing and calming and filling me with peace. Perhaps that is why, in this case, I prefer some of the older translations to describe such unity with Christ rather than the more recently rendered “remain.”
It is not difficult for me to imagine Jesus and his friends on that momentous night.
As the disciples listen, I can envision them caught up in the wonder and peacefulness of his description of life with him.
I hear his voice growing soft as he looks around at each one with eyes of deep love and then begins to speak:
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit…. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing…. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. (John 15:1-2,4-5, 7-9, RSV)
Ever since my early days of walking with the Lord, these few words have been among my favorite passages of Scripture. They seemed to represent the apex, the ultimate in the Christian experience, the most powerful biblical exposition of what that Christlikeness for which I so hungered must be like. So as I prayed, God, make me like Jesus, it was always to John 15 that my thoughts immediately turned.
But I did not know how this “abiding” was to come about, or when I might expect to see it begin to happen in my life. It seemed somehow like an ethereal process that perhaps stole over one gradually, by spiritual osmosis. I suppose, if I were honest, I would have to confess that as dearly as I loved the passage, I did not find a great deal of practicality in John 15.
I’m sure my shortsightedness is already obvious to you. I had not paid sufficient attention to the remainder of the passage, where Jesus explains precisely what comprises this life and exactly how one may enter into it.
Why was Jesus one with his Father? What enabled this oneness to be, in MacDonald’s words, “the bond of the universe, the chain that holds it together, the one active unity, the harmony of things”?
Jesus tells us clearly:
If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things have I spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you…. This I command you, to love one another. (John 15:10-12,17, RSV)
Jesus was one with his Father because he did his Father’s will.
To abide is to obey. And to obey is to love.
– Excerpted from pages 99-102 of Make Me Like Jesus by Michael Phillips
Continue Reading: Make Me Like Jesus by Michael Phillips
Are we willing to ask God to make us like Jesus? If status-quo spirituality is for you, do not read this book by best-selling author Michael Phillips. It is a dangerous book to the flesh. The journey toward Christlikeness may be painful and costly. Yet that journey leads to the ultimate purpose God intends for all his children: being made into the image of his son.