Quiet time with God – Remain in Me
Quiet times with God can be quiet a challenge to accomplish. I’m no stranger to this. But it is vitally important to one’s Christian life, and in these paragraphs below, I want to dig into John 15 where Scripture talks about the vine and the branches, and unpack this important scripture on quiet times.
Scripture has the famous words of Jesus in John 15:1-8 about Him being the vine, and we being the branches. What is interesting is that Jesus repeats the idea that we are the branches and He is the vine, and that we need to remain in Him. Whenever there is a repeat in Scripture of something, it is to bring emphasis. So let’s look at why there is an emphasis on the fact that the branches, who are us, need to remain in the vine, who is Christ.
Firstly, what does it mean to remain? The dictionary defines the idea of remaining as staying in the same place, or continuing to do the same thing that you have been doing. A simple Google search will bring up three definitions for the word “remain” from the Oxford dictionary. So it is to stay in the same state or place. This could be a quiet action, or a loud action. It just means that there is time where it is needed to remain. Now we need to understand what it means to be “In Christ”.
A vine is a plant that needs constant pruning, or cleansing. The gardener has to come and cut off the dead leaves, water it and help it grow. It needs pruning too. And so, there can be no mistake what Jesus meant when He said that we are vine and He is the gardener. There is constant work to be done on us. We need refining, pruning, cleansing from things that we do wrong, better called, sin. 1 This is done through having a quiet time with God. As we spend time in His word, in the quiet and we quiet our hearts before Him, He is able to talk to us and show us treasures that He has for us. He is able to prune us and show us things we need to change in our lives.
Just like the vine’s branches cannot exist outside of the vine, so the Christian cannot exist outside of God. What Jesus is saying through these verses is that a Christian needs to be in constant communication with God. The Christian wife and mom can find it extremely hard to do. I am no stranger to being brain fogged, feeling sick, feeling tired and constantly having to run after little kids. Nor am I a stranger to children not being able to sleep through the night and constantly waking us up. And so, quiet times with God tends to erode away.
Dear friend, it is important to keep those quiet times with God up. They don’t need to be an hour a day, but focusing on spending time with God in the Quiet is important. It could be in the quiet of your own heart as your kids are running, crying or screaming around you. This could mean putting on worship music and spending time in worship where you sing along quietly in your heart. God understands where you are at, but you need to make the effort on your part to spend that time with God. It could also take on the form of praying while you are driving in the car, or listening to a sermon or audio Bible as you drive. Let God speak to your heart in the quiet moments. Grab the moments. They could be two second moments, but learning how to grab the moments are important.
Jesus says something frightening when we continue looking at the passage. In verse 2 it mentions that branches that don’t bear fruit gets cut off. When Christians don’t spend that time in God’s word, they can’t progress and learn from the Lord. God will become silent. The Christian will not progress in their Christian life and even start backsliding. It is vital to make that quiet time alone with God. Whatever form or shape it will take.
As you consider and read this, please make time to have a quiet time with God, even if you’re falling apart, or even if there is total chaos in your house. Start with two minutes, or grabbing moments where you can if you are a busy mom. God sees your heart and the effort that you put in and will reward you.
- The Gospel according to St. John. R.V.G. Tasker. 1972, Tyndale Press ↩︎
© 2024, admin. All rights reserved.
