Category: Demands of Jesus

A series of posts blogging through the Demands of Jesus as seen in John Piper’s book “What Jesus Demands from the World”

Jesus’ Demands — Fear Him Who Can Destroy Both Soul And Body in Hell (#11)

~ Bob Hayton ~ 4 Comments

Click to orderNote: these are devotional posts based on John Piper’s new book What Jesus Demands from the World.

This post is number 11, because I started the series a while ago. If you like this post, check out the other posts in the series. But most importantly get the book (it’s also available to read online)!

Now, on the heels of demand #10 Rejoice and Leap for Joy, comes a more startling and sobering demand…

Demand #11 — Fear Him Who Can Destroy Both Soul And Body in Hell

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)

But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me. (Luke 19:27)

Then he will say to those on his left, “depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. (Matthew 25:41, 46)

The Awful Place Called Hell

It’s fashionable these days to downplay Hell. Many “evangelical” leaders are denying its existence, suggesting it is not eternal, or claiming there is no actual fire in Hell. Some claim it is a state of mind, or that hell is on earth.

In fact, this very Sunday, on Good Morning America, I heard an interview of an influential (former?) evangelical pastor who has changed his mind about hell, claiming it is here on earth, and a mere creation of superstitious man. ABC is going to be dedicating a 20/20 special this Friday to the topic of Hell. I can already guess their conclusions!

Sadly, these same evangelical leaders claim to be following the example of Jesus. But don’t they realize that Jesus didn’t share their view of Hell? Jesus spoke of hell more than anyone else in Scripture.

He refers to it as a terrible place to be feared. A place of “outer darkness” with “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 8:12). He describes it as a “fiery furnace”, with “unquenchable fire” (Matt. 13:41, Mark 9:44). It is the “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).

And worst of all, Hell is eternal. Jesus describes it as a place of “eternal punishment”. On this point let me quote John Piper,

This last description–“eternal punishment”–is especially heartrending and fearful because it is contrasted with “eternal life.” “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” In this contrast we hear the tragedy of loss as well as suffering and endlessness. Just as “eternal life” will be a never-ending experience of pleasure in God’s presence, so “eternal punishment” will be a never-ending experience of misery under God’s wrath (John 3:36; 5:24).

A Passive Hell ?

At this point, many a sincere believer tries to lessen the full effect of this teaching by claiming that Hell is “a mere natural consequence of bad choices”. People do consciously reject God’s free offer of salvation made in the gospel, and this choice does lead to hell. But Piper is quick to point out that such is not the whole story.

People make choices that lead to hell. But it is not the whole truth. Jesus says these choices are really deserving of hell. “Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to [that is, guilty of, or deserving of] the hell of fire” (Matt. 5:22). That is why he calls hell “punishment” (Matt. 25:46). It is not a mere self-imposed natural consequence (like cigarette smoking leading to lung cancer); it is the penalty of God’s wrath (like a judge sentencing a criminal to hard labor).

The Biblical picture of hell, is of a just God pouring out righteous anger and wrath over sin. God sends people to hell, and Jesus is pictured in Revelation and Isaiah as the One Whose garments get stained with the blood of his enemies as He “tread(s) the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Rev. 19:15b with Is. 63:3 and Rev. 14:20).

Fear, But Don’t Fear

We are to fear God as a holy Judge indeed. So is Jesus calling us to a “life of anxiety that God is angry with us and is ready to punish us at the slightest misstep”? No! Piper highlights the very next few sentences which follow on the heels of Jesus’ admonition to fear God.

. . . Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matt. 10:29-31, emphasis added — compare also Luke 12:4-7).

Piper says,

In the same breath Jesus says, “Fear God who casts into hell” and “Do not fear because God is your Father who values you more than the sparrows and knows your smallest need.”. . . How does Jesus mean for us to experience these two truths about God–he is to be feared, and he is to be trusted? It won’t do to simply say that “fear of God” means “reverence for God” rather than “being afraid of him.” That does not fit with the words, “Fear him, who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!” (Luke 12:5) . . . The key is that God himself is the one who removes his wrath from us. Our peace does not come from our removing the God of wrath from our thinking, but from his removing his wrath from us. . . .

The Seriousness of Sin

There is a beautiful encouragement to trust God as a loving Father in this text, but there is also a serious warning about the seriousness of sin. Piper says that this demand of Jesus “teaches us to see sin as more serious than we ever dreamed”. That unforgiven sin leads to hell, makes sin serious indeed.

But I am so prone to excuse my sin, and I suspect you are too. Yet both of us enjoy casting stones at others. The key in appreciating the justness of Hell according to Piper is seeing God as He really is. Let me quote him now.

Therefore, the seriousness of sin arises from what it says about God. God is infinitely worthy and honorable. But sin says the opposite. Sin says that other things are more desirable and more worthy. How serious is this? The seriousness of a crime is determined, in part, by the dignity of the person and the office being dishonored. If the person is infinitely worthy and infinitely honorable and infinitely desirable and holds an office of infinite dignity and authority, then rebuffing him is an infinitely outrageous crime. Therefore it deserves an infinite punishment.

The Place of Fear

For us Christians, especially those of us who are conservative doctrinally, this article has so far been easy. We have applauded it from the peanut gallery. Hell is real, sinners need to fear God and accept the provisions made for them according to the Gospel. Amen.

But if you notice, Jesus is directing his remarks to his disciples. This is plain from both Matthew and Luke’s accounts. So what does this message have to speak to us?

While we don’t need to be continually fearing God as unbelievers, we do need to fear unbelief. Sin is in essence, unbelief. When we disbelieve God’s promises, we give in to the appeal of sin. The demand to fear God, is a call for us to realize how serious sin really is. Let me quote Piper at length on this point.

What then is left to fear? The answer is unbelief. For those who follow Jesus, fearing God means fearing the terrible prospect of not trusting the one who paid such a price for our peace. In other words, one of the means that God uses to keep us peacefully trusting in Jesus is the fear of what God would do to us if we did not believe. The reason we do not live in the discomfort of constant fear is because we believe. That is, we rest in the all sufficient work of Jesus and in our Father’s sovereign care. But at those moments when unbelief tempts us, a holy fear rises and warns us what a foolish thing it would be to distrust the one who loved us and gave his Son to die for our anxiety-free joy.

This message is not popular today. People would rather believe that once they commit to Christ, they are eternally secure and can coast through life. This is not necessarily true, as the abundant Scriptural warnings to persevere and “endure to the end” contest.

What trips up many on this point is that they conclude that if you believe it is potentially possible that you are not sincerely a believer, that you could possibly fall away from the faith (and thereby evidence that you never were a true believer), then the Christian life must just be all about our works. If we really have to fear God in this way, we must be continually depending on our efforts to keep believing.

It is true that some pervert the Biblical doctrine of perseverance into just such an introspective self-effort. But this is a perversion of the true doctrine. Piper says concerning fear: “This is the best effect of fear: It wakens us to our need for help and points us to the all-sufficient Redeemer, Jesus.” A true understanding of the perseverance of the saints will lead one to depend all the more on Jesus as our only sure hope of eternal life. Those who believe themselves beyond the possibility of falling (contrary to 1 Cor. 10:12), can tend to trust on their own work of believing in Christ and are tempted to not cling all the more earnestly to Christ day in and day out. For more on the idea of perseverance, check out these posts I have done on the topic.

So to conclude, we are to fear God because He can destroy us in Hell. Yet at the same time because of Jesus’ blessed sacrifice on our behalf, we don’t have to fear God as a distant and holy Judge, but we can lovingly trust him as a loving and caring Father. All praise to the Lamb for bringing us to God, and giving us such a wonderful relationship with our Heavenly Father.

—See all posts on, the Demands of JesusAddThis Social Bookmark Button

Jesus’ Demands — Rejoice and Leap for Joy(#10)

~ Bob Hayton ~ 1 Comment

Click to orderNote: these are devotional posts based on John Piper’s new book What Jesus Demands from the World.

Note: For this chapter, I would highly recommend reading it online (pg. 84), since it is so good. It brings together much of John Piper’s teachings regarding joy and delight together in an accessible and highly helpful 8 pages or so.

Demand #10 — Rejoice and Leap for Joy

Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.    (Luke 6:22-23)

Behold, I have given you authority to  tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice  that your names are written in  heaven.    (Luke 10:19-20)

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a  man found and covered up.    Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.    (Matt. 13:44)

These things  I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.    (John 15:11)

Staggering and Shocking

For many reasons, this demand to “rejoice and leap for joy” is surprising, startling, staggering, and shocking! In fact, John Piper has written several books and devoted much of his resources to delving deeper into the command to rejoice in Jesus. So there is way too much to say on this topic in one small chapter.

For this post, I will be doing a lot of quoting, because I want to capture the spirit of this chapter adequately. First, let me provide a  quote from C.S. Lewis which Piper has reproduced in this chapter. Then I will quote Piper on this point and move on.

…our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (C.S. Lewis from The Weight of Glory)

…the demand that we be happy is not marginal or superfluous. It is a shocking wake-up call to people who are finding their happiness in all the wrong places. Jesus’ solution to our love affair with sin is not merely that we tear out our sin-loving eyes (Matt. 5:29), but that we be mastered by joy in a new reality, namely, God.

Unspeakably Good News!!

The news about Jesus is not ordinary. No, it is good news. In Matt. 13:44, Jesus describes the value of the Gospel (the Good News) as a priceless treasure. It is something so great and so good that people would die for it, so to speak. People would do anything they could to get that priceless treasure.

And so Piper claims, “[God] does not call us to a willpower religion that feels only duty and no delight. He calls us to himself and to his Father. Therefore, he calls us to joy…joy in God and in his Son.”

Self Denial and Joy

The call to experience indescribable joy (see 1 Pet. 1:8) is not opposed to the call to deny yourself and take up the cross. Piper explains:

The demand for joy does not encourage us to retreat one millimeter from the radical demand of Luke 14:33, “Any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” We renounce all those joy-giving things because we have found the treasure hidden in the field and we have been given eyes to see that this treasure—this glorious God—is infinitely more valuable than everything we possess or could possess in this world. This is why we renounce it all with joy.

Piper goes on to give  a quote by C.S. Lewis which points out that Jesus’ demand for self denial is not an end to itself. “We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.” Did you catch the last part of that C.S. Lewis quote? Jesus specifies the rewards we will get if we go ahead and deny ourselves in almost every place he calls us to deny ourselves! Jesus sees no problem with motivating us with glorious rewards—because the reward is infinite joy in Christ Himself!

Sober, not Superficial Joy

Let me quote Piper on this point.

What astonishes us most immediately when Jesus says, “Rejoice…and leap for joy” is that he is saying it precisely in the context of pain….

…Therefore, the joy he demands now (“in that day,” Luke 6:23) is not chipper. It is not joy-lite. It is not superficial or marked with levity. This is the mistake of too many people and too many churches. They think that Jesus’ demand for joy is a demand to tell jokes or weave slapstick into Christian corporate life. I don’t smell the Jerusalem-bound Jesus in that atmosphere. Something has gone wrong.

What’s wrong is that the aroma of suffering is missing. For Jesus the demand for joy is a way to live with suffering and to outlast suffering. Therefore this joy is serious. It’s the kind you fight for by cutting off your hand (Matt. 5:30) and selling your possessions (Matt. 13:44) and carrying a cross with Jesus to Calvary (Matt. 10:38-39). It has scars. It sings happy songs with tears. It remembers the dark hours and knows that more are coming. The road to heaven is a hard road, but it is not joyless.

The Fruit of Joy

Piper sees holiness as intimately connected to joy. He sees “the power of a superior pleasure” as the power that sets us free from the “cares and riches and pleasures of life” (Luke 8:14). Listen to a few sentences by Piper on this point:

Many Christians think stoicism is a good antidote to sensuality. It isn’t. it is hopelessly weak and ineffective. Willpower religion usually fails, and even when it succeeds, it gets glory for the will, not for God. It produces legalists, not lovers.

Another fruit, or rather, result of joy is this. God is glorified. Piper elsewhere and often declares “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” In this chapter, Piper finds proof for the position that joy in God glorifies God from Jesus’ prayer in Jn. 17. “…[Jesus’] intention to sustain our joy in him is part of what it means for us to glorify the Father and the Son.” So this should make us see joy in God as a duty we are to pursue.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

Is it possible to be hung up on joy too much?    Is it wrong to strive for continual joy and fulfillment in all that Jesus is to us? Well Song of Solomon 5:1 says “Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love!” From this text, Jonathan Edwards said the following:

Our hungerings and thirstings after God and Jesus Christ and after holiness can’t be too great for the value of these things, for they are things of infinite value…. [Therefore] endeavor to promote spiritual appetites by laying yourself in the way of allurement… There is no such thing as excess in our taking of this spiritual food.    There is no such virtue as temperance in spiritual feasting.

There is so much to be gleaned from this chapter, and I did not get into everything. But I think what arrested me the most was this final quote by Edwards. I understand that joy is very important, but so often I lack that joy. Edwards counsels us to put ourselves “in the way of allurement”. I need to be utilizing the means of grace and being in the word and reading and listening concerning heavenly things. I need to place myself there, and God-willing Jesus will share His joy with me in ever greater measures. May He do the same for all of us.

—See all posts on, the Demands of Jesus

Jesus’ Demands — Love God with All your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength (#9)

~ Bob Hayton ~ 31 Comments

Click to orderNote: these are devotional posts based on John Piper’s new book What Jesus Demands from the World.

Demand #9 — Love God with All your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength

Jesus answered, “The most important [commandment] is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'”   (Mark 12:29-30)

Woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.   (Luke 11:42)

But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.   (John 5:42-43)

As I am progressing through the book, I am painfully aware that posting about each chapter slows my reading down. But on the other hand, it causes me to meditate and think on each chapter twice. So I am determined to continue blogging through the demands of Jesus. While I am talking about this series, I should mention that these posts are more than just a summary of Piper. They include some reflection and some rearranging of material for my own benefit. For instance, the alliteration below is not Piper’s. All that is to say you really should get the book, or at least read it online.

The End of Love

This seems a simple point: we are required to love God. But I think it is important. Piper writes:

To love God we must know him. God would not be honored by groundless love. In fact, there is no such thing. If we do not know anything about God, there is nothing in our mind to awaken love. If love does not come from knowing God, there is no point in calling it love for God….

Since love is directed to God and depends upon a knowledge of God, the fact that Jesus is the fullest revelation of God (cf. Jn. 14:7-9, Matt. 11:27) becomes important. As the John 5 passage above indicates, one cannot love God and reject Jesus. Further, the revelation of Jesus will enhance our love for God.

A practical application of this point would be that as our understanding and knowledge of God grows, our capacity to love God more also increases. Thus doctrine is not a hindrance to love, but rather it should increase our love.

The Emotion of Love

Piper states that Jesus “changes our hearts to know God so that we see him as compellingly beautiful.” That phrase “compellingly beautiful” is an attempt to stress the fact that love is inherently emotional. It is not a mere decision. You can’t turn it off and on like a light bulb. You can’t just love spinach, for instance. Something must change inside of you to make you love it. Similarly, you don’t just love baseball, it must be something wondeful to you before you can love it.

More than just a decision, many people talk of love for God in strictly “duty” terms. Verses like John 14:15, 21 are used to emphasize that love is more an action not just a feeling. Some argue that the essence of love for God is love for your neighbors. But as Piper points out, Jesus distinguishes between love for God and love for neighbors when he lists the two most important commandments. So, love for God cannot be defined by love for neighbor. This is not to say they are not connected, however.

Two verses reveal that “love for God is most essentially an experience of the affections, not behavior.” First, Mk. 7:6-7 talks of people who “[honor God] with their lips, but their heart is far from [Him]…”. The external actions that the Pharisees rigorously observed did not make their worship acceptable to God. God expected worship to come from a heart of love. [On the New Pauline Perspective, and its view of the Pharisees, see this recent post.] Second, Matt. 6:24 states “…either he will hate the one and love the other…”, from which we can rightly infer that the opposite of love is hate. The word “despise” is also used in that verse. Both “despise” and “hate” are “strong emotional words”. So in contrast, “loving God is a strong inward emotion, not a mere outward action.”

It is the above reasons, supported by many other verses, which lead Piper to conclude that loving God happens when, “we begin to prefer above all else to know him and see him and be with him and be like him.” In short, “God’s glory becomes our supreme pleasure.”

The Extent of Love

On this point, I am referring to the command to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Let me just quote Piper’s conclusion here:

When Jesus demands that we love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, he means that every faculty and every capacity of our being should express the fullness of our affection for God—the fullness of all the ways we treasure him…. “Heart” highlights the center of our volitional and emotional life without excluding thought (Luke 1:51).   “Soul” highlights our life as a whole, though sometimes distinguished from the body (Matt. 10:28).   “Mind” highlights our thinking capacity.   And “strength” highlights the capacity to make vigorous efforts both bodily and mentally (Mark 5:4; Luke 21:36).”…. the point is that every faculty and capacity that we have should display at every moment that God is our supreme treasure.

The Essence of Love

Quote: “Loving God is most essentially treasuring God.”

The  Endurance  of Love

Piper ends with a warning from Matt. 24:12. In the last days, many people will see their love “grow cold” (cf. Matt. 24:12 NASB). To ensure that our love remains fervent, to ensure that all of our faculties continue to treasure God, we need to “look steadily at Jesus and pray that he would reveal God as compellingly beautiful.” Since Jesus reveals God fully (Jn. 14:9), studying Jesus as revealed in Scripture should help us know God more and love Him more.

To conclude, let us be reminded afresh that love for God is a feeling. And that God is not pleased with mere external worship—He wants our hearts to be fervent towards Him. Let us look to Jesus and trust Him to make God compellingly beautiful to us. Let us ask that God pour His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5).

—See all posts on, the Demands of Jesus

Jesus’ Demands — Take up your Cross and Follow Me (#8)

~ Bob Hayton ~ 13 Comments

Click to orderDemand #8 — Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me

If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matt. 16:24-5)

Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men. (Mark 1:17)

I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. (John 8:12)

Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead. (Matt. 8:22)

If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me. (John 8:31)

Following Jesus means Fulfilling Jesus’ Mission.

Jesus came to “seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). And he did this ultimately through his suffering on our behalf on the cross. Jesus’ mission was “to gather a people in allegiance to himself for the glory of his Father” as Piper puts it. And following Jesus is joining Him in that mission, or helping Him fulfill that mission. This is why Jesus said “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Mark 1:17)

Following Jesus is Painful.

Jesus promised us, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” (Jn. 15:20) Jesus did not promise us a rosy life. He promised us suffering. This is why he calls his followers to first “take up their cross” and then to “follow” Him. In Matt. 16:24 “Jesus put the emphasis on self-denial and cross-bearing”.

The suffering we are called to endure creates ruptures in our relationships with people, wealth, and our occupation. We are to hate our most intimate family members, even our own selves, in comparison to our devotion to Jesus (Luke 14:26). And we are to “renounce all that [we have]” if we want to be a true disciple (Luke 14:33). This results in a liberal approach to giving, such that Jesus can say to the rich young ruler “sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me”. (Matt. 19:21) Piper points out that many of the disciples had to leave their occupations, and many times Jesus will move his people to leave their good jobs, pack their bags, and head off to Africa or Asia, or go into ministry here in America. Not everyone will be called to leave, but all are called to follow which will change your perspective on your job, your money, and your family.

Following Jesus is “Worth It”.

The suffering we are called to endure as we follow Jesus will be worth it. Jesus promises that if we hold on to our life we’ll lose it, and if we lose our life we will save it. (Mk. 8:35) And He constantly declares that following Him is a wise and exceedingly beneficial choice. Consider Jesus’ stress on our eternal reward to be received through this suffering/following in the following verses Jn. 12:25; Matt. 19:27, 29; Luke 14:14; Matt. 5:12. So while the suffering is only temporary the pleasure is eternal.

Yet the pleasure is not only future. Following Jesus brings joy now. It can make the persecuted “leap for joy” (see Demand #10 and Luke 6:22-23). This kind of faithful following even through suffering—the kind that rejoices to suffer for Jesus’ name—brings great glory to our Savior. A sad, somber, doleful “suffering for Jesus” will not necessarily glorify Him. But the kind of triumphant joy which smiles in the midst of tragedy, that points to the incomparable worth of Jesus Christ and properly displays His value to a watching world. Consider Piper, finally, on this point.

If you follow Jesus only because he makes life easy now, it will look to the world as though you really love what they love, and Jesus just happens to provide it for you. But if you suffer with Jesus in the pathway of love because he is your supreme treasure, then it will be apparent to the world that your heart is set on a different fortune than theirs. This is why Jesus demands that we deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him. [emphasis added]

—See all posts on, the Demands of Jesus

∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7

Jesus’ Demands — Abide in Me (#7)

~ Bob Hayton ~ 3 Comments

Click to orderDemand #7 — Abide in Me

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5)

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. (John 15:9)

If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (John 14:11)

Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31)

What abiding is.

To abide, is to stay, continue, or dwell. So Piper says, “Jesus meant: ‘Stay in me. Continue in me. Keep me for your dwelling.'” With the figure of the vine, we understand a little better what “abiding” is. Piper says it best: “Abiding in Jesus means staying vitally connected to the life-giving, power-giving, fruit-producing branch, namely, Jesus.”

What abiding produces.

Piper claims abiding is the “moment-by-moment cause of every good thing in our lives”. Of course, he gets this from Jesus’ statement “Apart from me you can do nothing”. So in John 15, abiding in Jesus results in fruit. No fruit without abiding. So Piper again states that abiding means “staying vitally connected, hour by hour, to the one who alone produces in our lives everything he demands.”

What abiding isn’t.

Abiding produces fruit, so abiding cannot be that very fruit. It is wrong to think we are obeying Christ’s demand to abide if we are just “bearing fruit” or “keeping Jesus’ commandments”. That is the fruit of abiding. Maybe we don’t have abiding quite pigeonholed yet. So…

How do we abide?

Jesus says abide “in me” (Jn. 15:4) and “in my love” (Jn. 15:9). He also says to abide “in my word” (Jn. 14:11). All of this points toward “abiding as continual trust in the truth of Jesus’ words and in the certainty of his love.” We would not be abiding in Jesus’ love if we stopped beleiving that we are loved by him. We would not be abiding in Jesus’ word, if we ceased believing in the truth of that word. Abiding is a continual trust in Jesus’ love and in His words, in other words, a continual trust in Him as a person.

Piper concludes that “abiding in Jesus—in his love and in his word—is trusting that he really is loving us at every moment and that everything he has revealed about himself and his work for us and our future with him is true.”

A warning.

Jesus’ demand that we abide in Him is a warning. In Jn. 8:30-31 (quoted above), Jesus ties abiding in with being a “true” disciple. In John 15, Jesus speaks of the utter destruction of those who, in the words of Piper, “appear to be truly in the vine, but are not”. All of this is to warn us that if we are not abiding, if our lifestyle is one that consistently does not trust in Jesus’ love and in Jesus’ Word continually, then we might very well not be genuinely born again. We may still be on our way to hell.

Such warnings do not prove that we can actually lose our salvation. 1 Jn. 2:19 teaches that those who fall away were never truly saved, they just seemed to be. These warnings should also not cause us to try to earn our salvation by working real hard. No, they are what God uses to prod us onward along that straight and narrow way—the hard way. At times we will need to be warned that our lifestyle is not matching our profession. And they ultimately remind us that it is only God’s free grace given to us because of Jesus Christ’s perfect life, death, and resurrection, that gives us a secure place in heaven. The very warnings to continue believing will help us believe and call us to find refuge in Jesus Christ through ongoing faith and trust. [See this post for more on this point.]

Encouragement.

Piper stresses that ultimately we cannot “abide” on our own. God keeps us in the vine. He does not let us slip through His hand (Jn. 10:27-29). Jesus prays for us and sovereignly determines that our faith will not fail (cf. Luke 22:31-32).

So with all this in mind, let us purpose to abide, moment by moment, in a vibrant trust in Jesus—His love and His Word. Let us seek to put His Word in front of our eyes, so that reading it faithfully, we will be nourished and abide in the vine. Let us use the means of grace in our lives and take advantage of our church and our relationships with other believers, so that we keep on keeping on. Let us press on to higher ground!

—See all posts on, the Demands of Jesus

∼striving for the unity of the faith for the glory of God∼ Eph. 4:3,13 “¢ Rom. 15:5-7