John 15:10

If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His love.

Ten times in these ten verses is the necessity of abiding in Christ emphasized, the need of keeping a firm hold on the Savior by love. So much depends upon that fact that every believer, having once been implanted into the true Vine, maintain his close connection. For if anyone does not remain in Christ, the consequences are disastrous. He is thrown out as a useless branch, for he is withered. There can be no dead wood lying about in the vineyard of God's Church; so all the dead branches are heaped on a pile and thrown into the fire, and it burns. According to the common usage in such cases, there is inevitable and complete destruction for the dead branches. Every person that does not remain in Christ, after once having gained the saving knowledge, thereby becomes a dead member. He cuts off his own supply of spiritual life and power. And as for real fruit, actual good works, he no longer is able to perform them. There may be some Christian show and semblance, but the reality of Christian virtue is lost. "So long as the branch remains rooted in the stem or stock and its sap and power remains in him, his fruits must be and remain good, though they may in some way be stung by a worm or be attacked by caterpillars or some other vermin. Thus also, if a man abides in Christ and receives and keeps energy and power from Him by faith, that Jesus works in him with His power and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, then the remaining weakness, which is incited by the devil and this sinful nature, will do no harm, only that he oppose such weakness with the continual battle of faith and sweep out such vermin. But if thou wouldst give up the doctrine of faith or subvert it and, leaving Christ, depend upon thine own sanctity, or publicly live in sin and shame, and yet glory in the Gospel and in the Christian name: then thou shalt know that thou art a false branch and hast no part in the Vine, but, cast out and condemned with wood and fruits, belongest to eternal hell-fire. " But to those that abide in Jesus, or, what is identical with that condition, to those that abide in the Word of the Lord, a further beneficial effect and result of that blessed intimacy is the hearing of prayer by Jesus and the Father. By means of His teaching, of His Gospel, Jesus abides in His disciples, and by the power of that same Word they are enabled to bear fruit which is acceptable to Him. But this same relationship also teaches them to pray in the proper manner. For the words: You may pray what you will, are not to be taken in an absolute sense, in the sense of arbitrary choice. The relation of the believers to Christ precludes such an understanding. The prayer of Christians will always be made in the way of love and of God's Word, in accordance with the new life which governs their every thought and action. Such prayers are the expression of the intimacy between Christ and His disciples, and are heard as a matter of natural consequence. For by this granting of prayer, flowing out of the intimate relationship between Christ and the believers, the Father is glorified. And the result is a strengthening of the bonds of love, an increase in the amount and in the quality of the good works, and a confirming of discipleship. The obedience of Christians is not a galling servitude, but a cheerful, joyful expression of their love. The same measure of love that the Father has toward the Son the latter has toward His own, and so the union and intimacy is a most perfect one, and should be kept by all means. Every person that abides in the love which Christ has for him and for the whole world is safe by reason of that love. But this abiding is done and accomplished by keeping and observing the commandments of Jesus; this rings the full possession and enjoyment of Christ's love. Just as Christ kept the will of His Father and carried it into execution, so the Christians will naturally find their delight in observing all the commandments, all the sayings of their Master, above all that one concerning the clinging to the Word of the Gospel as the one Word of salvation. This abiding in Christ, in the Word of the Gospel, faithfulness in confessing; is the result and working of God's grace. He that began the good work in us by planting us into the true Vine, Jesus Christ, will also perform it until the great day of glory.