You Didn't Choose This Union — God Did

Andrew Murray's Abide in Christ, Chapter 6: God Himself Has United You to Him (1 Corinthians 1:30)

"But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." — 1 Corinthians 1:30, KJV

What if the pressure to maintain your union with Christ — to stay close, to hold on, to keep abiding — was never really yours to bear in the first place?

That is the liberating truth Andrew Murray unfolds in Chapter 6 of Abide in Christ. The foundation of our abiding is not our grip on Christ. It is God's own act of placing us in Him. "Of him are ye in Christ Jesus." Three words carry everything: of him. God Himself is the author of this union.

What does it mean to be "in Christ"?

For many believers, being "in Christ" is a theological phrase we affirm without fully inhabiting. We believe it in our heads but live as if the union depends on how well we pray, how faithfully we show up, how spiritually consistent we are on any given day.

Murray cuts through this anxiety with a simple reminder: you did not place yourself in Christ. God did. "Of God are ye in Christ Jesus" — this is not your achievement. It is His act. The same God who called light out of darkness, who spoke the world into being, is the One who joined you to His Son.

This means the union is as secure as God Himself is faithful.

The gift that contains all gifts

Murray makes a striking observation in this chapter: 1 Corinthians 1:30 does not just say Christ was made our righteousness or our sanctification. It says He was made our wisdom — and wisdom comes first, because all the others flow from it. In Christ, as Murray writes, wisdom is "the treasury in which are to be found the three precious gifts that follow": righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

You are not in Christ to receive individual blessings piecemeal — a little peace here, a little strength there. You are in Christ, and in Him all the fullness of God's salvation is already yours. Abiding is not the way to acquire what you lack. It is the way to live in what you already have.

The foundation that holds when feelings don't

There are days when abiding feels impossible. Days when prayer is dry, when the Word feels distant, when we wonder whether we are truly connected to anything at all. These are the moments when the truth of Chapter 6 becomes an anchor.

Your union with Christ does not rise and fall with your spiritual feeling. It was established by God — and what God has joined, He sustains. Abiding, then, is not about manufacturing a feeling of closeness. It is about returning, again and again, to the fact: God placed me here. I am in Christ. This is where I live.

How to abide when you feel far

Murray's counsel is practical and gentle: when you feel distant from Christ, don't reach for more effort. Reach for the truth. Return to what God has declared. Confess it quietly: "Of God I am in Christ Jesus. This is not my doing — it is His. I rest here."

This is not passivity. It is faith. And faith, Murray reminds us, is exactly the posture God invites us into — trusting not in our grip on Him, but in His hold on us.

The branch does not hold itself to the vine. The vine holds the branch.

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Reflect & Pray

• When you feel spiritually dry, what do you tend to reach for — more effort, or the truth of who God says you are?

• Sit with these words today: "Of God are ye in Christ Jesus." What does it feel like to let God be the author of this union?

• Thank God today — not for what you have done to stay close to Him, but for what He has done to keep you.