commandments, patterns, motives; He gives the power to live soberly,
righteously, and godly, and in Him alone is that power to be found.

Then note that our reception of that power depends upon our own
efforts. 'Abide in Me and I in you.' Is that last clause a
commandment as well as the first? How can His abiding in us be a duty
incumbent upon us? But it is. And we might paraphrase the intention
of this imperative in its two halves, by--Do you take care that you
abide in Christ, and that Christ abides in you. The two ideas are but
two sides of the one great sphere; they complement and do not
contradict each other. We dwell in Him as the part does in the whole,
as the branch does in the vine, recipient of its life and fruit-
bearing energy. He dwells in us as the whole does in the part, as the
vine dwells in the branch, communicating its energy to every part; or
as the soul does in the body, being alive equally in every part,
though it be sight in the eyeball, and hearing in the ear, and colour
in the cheek, and strength in the hand, and swiftness in the foot.

'Abide in Me and I in you.' So we come down to very plain, practical
exhortations. Dear brethren, suppress yourselves, and empty your
lives of self, that the life of Christ may come in. A lock upon a
canal, if it is empty, will have its gates pressed open by the water
in the canal and will be filled. Empty the heart and Christ will come
in. 'Abide in Him' by continual direction of thought, love, desire to
Him; by continual and reiterated submission of the will to Him, as
commanding and as appointing; by the honest reference to Him of daily
life and all petty duties which otherwise distract us and draw us
away from Him. Then, dwelling in Him we shall share in His life, and
shall bring forth fruit to His praise.