Abide with me

40 blogs of Lent, day 21

An interesting week for Christianity between the 14th and 21st February this year. Pope Francis has said that people like American Presidential hopeful Donald Trump, who want to build walls instead of bridges, are not Christian.

Trump responded, “No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man’s religion or faith.” He has since toned down his rhetoric against the Pope.

Previously, in a You Tube Video, Donald Trump held up his Bible. “My mother gave me this Bible, this very Bible, many years ago,” Trump says. “In fact, it’s her writing, right here. She wrote the name, and my address, and it’s just very special to me.”

Special, and surprisingly new looking. Where is the Bible that is read Donald? The one you have read for all these years? To be fair to Trump, he may have another copy of the Bible, but it still begs the question, why not show that one?

I have in my time as a Christian worn out the RSV I got in 1974 and the Good News Bible that replaced it. One is in a binder to hold the pages, the other is held together with duct tape. I now use an NRSV and ESV study Bible with access to my wife’s NIV study Bible. But that is a digression, except that it brings me round to what I was about to blog today:

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. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers;and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. John 15:5-11

The key word is abide. Those who abide produce the fruit. We have to abide in his love.

It is about how we live day to day. Christianity is not a once and for all time thing, you accept Jesus then that’s it, eternity is sealed. I have to abide in Jesus and he has to abide with me, it has to be like this for all time. Unlike Donald Trumps Bible, we have to do the living, We cannot take on the faith and put it to one side to bring out when it is opportune.

Is your faith lived daily, or is it like Donald Trump’s Bible?

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Bible readings from the English Standard Version Anglicised
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.