The Measure

This is the only question that finally matters.

Not: do you have correct eschatology? Not: can you identify the signs of the times? Not: do you have the disclosure framework assessed? Not: are you on the right side of the political questions that have consumed Christian energy for a generation?

Are you abiding?

Are you in actual, present-tense, relational encounter with the Father and the Son? Are you resting in His peace that does not depend on stable circumstances? Are you waiting for His Spirit to direct you to the right people at the right time? Are you praying not to manage your anxiety but to be in conversation with the Source of Reality? Are you reading Scripture not to gather information but to hear the voice you are learning to recognize? Are you staying connected to the community of branches who know the same vine?

"Remain in me, and I will remain in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me — and I in him — bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing." — John 15:4-5

The fruit is the verification. Not the argument. Not the precision of the eschatological framework. The fruit. And the fruit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control — is recognizable. It looks the same whether the age of disclosure is early or late. It looks the same whether the world is shaking or quiet. It looks the same because it comes from a source that does not change.

That is what the disclosure apparatus cannot take from the branch that stays in the vine.

The question Christ is asking you right now, in this moment, is not complex.

What are you doing right now, in the ordinary hours of the ordinary day, that keeps you connected to the vine?

Not what are you planning to do when the crisis arrives. Not what theological framework are you building for the disclosure moment. What are you doing now that makes the life of the vine flow through you?

That is the work. That is what holds. That is the only thing that holds.

Abide.