John 15:4-5,9
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. [5] I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.“I love each of you with the same love that the Father loves me. You must continually let my love nourish your hearts.
Often we teachers have a tendency to over-explain things and, in doing so, cloud the simple truth that the Holy Spirit is trying to communicate. These passages in John 15 are a classic example, where we try so hard to explain how to “abide” in Christ and how to “abide” in His love. As you may know, the Greek word for “abide” simply means “remain.” Christians have a tendency, unfortunately, to try to make everything into some form of performance on our part. Certainly, there are actions that we take and things that we do in response to “abiding,” but as shocking as this may sound, the word “abide” is simply to do nothing but instead to allow something to happen. How do we “abide” in Him? We simply allow Him to live His life through us moment by moment. Apart from Him, we can do nothing, so stop trying to abide. Simply believe, and to believe is just to trust Him. (Letting Jesus be Jesus) So stop trying to perform so that you can say you are abiding. The emphasis is not on what you do. The emphasis is on what that Vine does, and our resting in that reality. When you do that, it will result in you doing all kind of godly things because that is the kind of life Jesus lives through us
Verse nine tells us to “abide” in His love. So what do we do to abide in His love; nothing, but to continually soak in how much He loves you and allow His love to continually nourish you. Remaining in an attitude that allows Him to love you wholeheartedly will change everything in you that will provoke you to all kinds of action and responsive love to Him, but it won’t be to get Him to love you, but it will be because you’ve allowed the fact that He loves you as much as the Father loves Him to nourish you.