Abide With Us!

What an invitation this is in answer to their question: “Where dwellest thou?”

“Come and see” said the Lord Jesus, and they went with Him straight away. I wonder where He took them. Perhaps His dwelling was a simple room somewhere, but I am of the persuasion that He may well have had some basic amenities arranged around a prepared campfire ready for lighting. After all the Lord once said: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” Matthew 8: 20.

It probably didn’t matter to these young men following Jesus where He dwelt, because it must have felt like home, just because He was there! They knew enough about this Man whom John the Baptist called “the Lamb of God” to trust what He had to say, and seized the opportunity to learn more while they were with Him.

A friend once said something rather lovely about heaven:

And so they abode with Him that evening hanging on to every word He spoke; probably well into the night. What fascinating things they must have heard! I would have loved to have secretly listened in and discovered what it was. Whatever He shared with them must have anchored their faith preparing them for the journey ahead of them as discipled of Jesus.

After He lived His life faithfully and went all the way to the cross to die in the place of lost sinners. After He died and was placed in a tomb, He rose from the dead after three days, and appeared to many of His followers, including those two men that abode with Him that night three and a half years prior to what had just happened.

Towards the end of the day, some time after the Lord Jesus was risen from the dead He appeared to two people walking on the road to Emmaeus. The Lord Himself revealed from the Scriptures the things concerning Himself to these people to settle their minds concerning what had happened over the past few days.

How much pleasure this invitation must have brought to the heart of the beloved Lord Jesus. They wanted Him to be with them, even though they didn't know who this Man was yet. There was something about His personality and His words that compelled them to ask Him to stay with them.

And this wasn't an invitation to have a casual conversation over a cup of coffee in a café, but it was the invitation to come into their home and sit with Him, and He with them to share deep things together.

He did turn in with them and stayed for a little while, because He had already shared with them some profound truths from the Word of God. “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Luke 24: 27. He stayed just long enough to reveal to them that He was the One whom the Scriptures were talking about.

As soon as He was gone they gathered themselves together to make the journey back to where they came from to tell the others the good news. But listen to the statement they made while recollecting His time with them:

Because as He talked with them something wonderful happened to them. The truth was dawning on their minds, the light was dissolving the dark away, His words were giving to them hope … their ‘heart’ burned within them! (‘Heart’ not ‘hearts’!) The same spirit of life that worked in one of them worked in the other.

As it was with those followers of the Lord Jesus long ago, so it is with us today! We too can walk with Him. We too can listen to His Word and find Him in all of the Scriptures. We too can ask Him to ‘Abide with us’, and He will!

Because our Lord is risen and victorious over sin, death, and hell; because His work of redemption is completed, all who come to Him by faith and trust Him fully can come into the presence of God without fear and trembling. We no longer have to dread what God will do with us on account of our sin.

But there is more … The Lord Jesus said:

Among all of the manifold blessings for the believer and follower of the Lord Jesus, we have the indescribable joyous potential of abiding in Him, and He in us … at our invitation! It is all about being at home in His presence and He feeling at home in us. And there in that wonderful state we have access into the very presence of God Himself.

May we do so with humility and a ceaseless sense of underserved privilege.

Seeing as this day and age is far spent and the darkness of evening closes in, how comforting it would be to know all is well when He is so near.

There can be no better way to start the New Year than with this purpose in mind and continue daily until we see Him face to face when faith gives way to sight.

With love and every blessing for …