in christ on Assimilation

Each one of us is called to live the truth of our unrepeatable uniqueness. We are not meant to model ourselves after others, however wonderful they may be. A delightful Jewish parable makes this point...

Webster defines the word abide this way: “to remain or settle down.”

My kids love the movie Remember the Titans . It’s the story of the integration of the TC WIlliams High School Football Team in Alexandria, Virginia, in the 1960s Civil Rights era. The white players a...

The new life is life "in Christ".

To abide is to continue, persevere, never cease to be within this eternal divine energy into which God alone can introduce us and then keep us and cause us to remain . . . . It is only in God that we ...

Abiding is the continually renewed decision that what has been done once for all by the action of Jesus shall be the basis, the starting point, the context for all my thinking and deciding and doing.

The word Abide is designed to help you remember that following Jesus is first and foremost about your relationship with Him. It’s about that wonderful, intimate fellowship between you and your Savior....

Our selves are fashioned; we are adorned with histories that incline us to saunter, swagger, or shuffle. Given our histories, some of us move through the world with a cape; some of us don baggy sweate...

Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself....

Every person in Scripture lived out a personal story incarnated by an even greater story about God, life, and the world. That story came from the politics, theology, and culture ingrained in their mem...

Submission is not subjugation. Subjugation turns a person into a thing, destroys individuality, and removes all liberty. Submission makes a person become more of what God wants him to be; it brings ou...

The invitation to follow Jesus isn’t an invitation to live for Jesus; it’s an invitation to abide in Jesus and let Him, out of the overflow of that relationship, live His life in and through us in a w...

When we enter into the “in Christ” existence we become one with those who are in Christ. Eternal life is received individually, but it is lived out in community. And the community battles sin in the b...

What each of us needs in place of the superficial virtue of niceness is a soul rooted and abiding in Christ. We need to be transformed so fully and completely that we actually are who we present ourse...

N.T. Wright takes some time in his book, How God Became King , to connect the idea of the logos (the eternal Word), with the idea of “dwelling,” or abiding in God’s presence: The Word became flesh ...

The relational posture of a Christian is anchored in our union with Christ. God dwells in us, by the Spirit, nearer to us than our very breath-Anyone who lives from this depth of intimate relationship...

We live in a fast-paced society. We’re used to quick results. It seems that much of our time and money is spent trying to save time—to do things faster, more efficient, and with less effort. We hurry ...

Jesus has made it clear to me that . . . just as he has his home with the Father, so do I.

From what is common in all these expressions, we can extract the dictionary definition of sacrifice: “the surrender of something of value for the sake of something else.” That is a good definition, bu...

The way of Jesus cannot be imposed or mapped — it requires an active participation in following Jesus as he leads us through sometimes strange and unfamiliar territory, in circumstances that become cl...

Abide is an old English word for “remain,” “stay steady” and “keep your position.” What it means to abide in Christ—that is, always to be resting on him, anchored to him, fixed in him, drawing from h...

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

If you never left your home and avoided all interaction with other people, you couldn’t be characterized as a loving person. Instead, you might even be unloving because of your lack of concern for oth...

R.W. DeHann wrote of a missionary who, shortly after arriving on the field, was speaking for the first time to a group of villagers. He was trying to present the gospel to them. He began by describing...

For every one look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ.

The great mistake made by most of the Lord’s people is in hoping to discover in themselves that which is to be found in Christ alone.

Nonetheless, this singular fact, full to the bursting, remains. It is a fact grounded in infinite outpouring: Christ is in me; I am in Christ. . . . Christ in me is not some narrow, introspective, dis...

The vine never says to the branches, “be in me,” because they already are, from the word go! Jesus has never said to the disciples “be in me,” because they already are, by the Father’s grace. He simpl...

No fewer than eight times in this passage [John 15:1-11] He tells His disciples, “Abide in Me.” “Remain with Me.” “Settle down into a relationship with Me.” “Let it be normal and natural that we would...

When people commune with God the very sensation of life is transformed, so that they are equipped “to see what is most beautiful, to hear what is most harmonious, to smell what is most fragrant, to ta...