Me."--JOHN xv. 4.

These words are so familiar by constant repetition, that their power to
awaken the soul is greatly lessened. They go and come through ear and
mind, as a lodger who has gone and come with exactly the same
appearance and at precisely the same hours for years, and no one
notices him now, because there is nothing novel about him to awake
notice or remark. How good would it be if we could hear this tender
injunction for the first time. Next to this, let us ask the Divine
Spirit to rid it of the familiarity of long use, to re-mint it, and to
make it fresh and vital, that it may seem to us that we have never
before realized how much Jesus meant, when He said, _Abide in Me_.

Perhaps it may assist us, if we adopt another English word for _abide_,
and one which, in some respects even more neatly, and certainly in
sound, resembles the Greek. It is the word _remain_; so that we may
read the Master's bidding thus: _Remain in Me, and I in you_.

This word is often employed in the New Testament in connection with
house and home. "Mary abode [or remained] with Elizabeth for three
months"; and "There abide [or remain]," said our Lord, when giving His
disciples direction for their preaching tour, and referring to some
hospitable house which has been opened to welcome them. It is used
three times in that memorable colloquy which introduced John and Andrew
to their future Teacher and Lord; "Master," they said, "where abidest
[or remainest] Thou; He saith unto them, 'Come and ye shall see.' They
came therefore, and saw where He is remaining, and they remained with
Him that day." And again: "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for
to-day I must remain in thy house." We are to remain in Christ as a
man stays in his home.

_It is inferred, of course, that we are in Christ._--It would be absurd
to bid a man remain in a house unless he were already within its doors.
We must be sure that we are in Christ. Naturally we were
outside--"Remember," says the Apostle, "that aforetime ye were separate
from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from
the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the
world." We were shoots in the wild vine, partaking of its nature,
involved in its curse, threatened by the axe which lay at its root.
But all this is altered now. The Father, who is the Husbandman, of His
abundant grace and mercy, has taken us out of the wild vine and grafted
us into t