My son loves photography. He knows how to frame the shot just so, using the right amount of zoom to bring out the subject. Looking at original paintings displayed in a gallery, in a similar way, allows you to move yourself both closer and farther away. Your perspective on the whole picture and its detail changes as you move in and out.

Reading Scripture is similar — we need to zoom in and out to understand properly what God is saying. For example, how do you respond to the picture of the vine and branches that Jesus paints in John 15? Is it reassuring or confusing? Stabilizing or destabilizing?

Worryingly, is Jesus saying that we can be truly one with him but then lose our place? Does he intend to leave us feeling shaky and insecure? Thankfully, as we zoom in and out, we see that the answer is no. Jesus teaches us about the vine and branches so that we might know his joy and our joy might be full (John 15:11).

You-in-Me and Me-in-You

“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 15:5). Jesus paints a picture here of a living vine — green, full of fruit, and flourishing. Jesus is together with those he loves, made one. This is real you-in-me and me-in-you connection and relationship with Jesus.

Zoom in closer and you’ll see something else: dead, fruitless branches (15:2), not vitally united by the Spirit to the person of Jesus and his life. They’re on the vine, hanging around Jesus. They might claim to be Christians, but they probably wouldn’t even be comfortable saying to Jesus, “Lord, you’re in me, and I’m in you.” Some people are existing like that lifeless wood. They’re not united to the source of life, not “grafted in.” It’s a precarious position, to say the least (15:2, 6).

Zoom out to the big picture, however, and you’ll find the friendship formula of you-in-me and me-in-you in John 14 and 17 too. It’s how Jesus, in John’s Gospel, describes life as opposed to death. It’s union with him as opposed to being apart from him — or vitally connected, fruit-bearing branches as opposed to empty ones (15:5–6).

That friendship formula of mutual indwelling stands out in John 15 as well. The Greek word for “abide” means staying put. Here’s a good translation of verse 5: “Whoever is lastingly in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” You in Christ and him in you, for keeps. No single translation is perfect, but “lives” or “dwells” also captures the thrust. This is unbreakable friendship and, wonderfully, friendship where he loved us first.

Forever Secure

Zoom out even further and you’ll find the same friendship formula of mutual indwelling in John 6 (and throughout 1 John), describing what it means to be vitally united to Jesus — one with him.

John 6 explains, in effect, how someone becomes “grafted into” the living vine. Changing the metaphor, they’re hungry and thirsty. They come to Jesus (6:35). They trust him, person-to-person, looking to him now for life. They put themselves in Jesus’s hands. It’s decidedly relational. At the same time, from God’s side, the Father is giving the person into Jesus’s hands (6:37). This is so beautiful. Think about it: the Father and the Son agreeing to hold someone, in eternal life, forevermore.

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. . . . For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. (6:37, 40; my translation)

You actively believe and trust Jesus; his arms embrace and hold you securely, tenderly, within the vine. On that last day, those same arms will be sure to raise you up into glory. Jesus promises here that he doesn’t cast out; he doesn’t abandon. You can’t lose your place in the living vine. It just can’t happen.

Keep the focus on John 6 for a moment longer. You see that if you’re trusting Jesus and his death for you, the eternal life you already have is, at its heart, you-in-me and me-in-you relationship with Jesus (6:54, 56). It’s spiritual and real — the difference between life in the vine and death.

“As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me” (6:57). It is no more possible for his people to fall out of loving relationship with Jesus than it is for him to fall out of you-in-me and me-in-you relationship with the Father. It just can’t happen!

Sweet Invitation

Let’s take our cameras and zoom back in now on John 15. “Abide [live] in me, and I in you,” Jesus says (15:4). It’s the same two-way formula that describes vital union with Jesus. But here, Jesus is urging, even commanding, us to find life in him, in the vine.

For someone who doesn’t know Jesus, this is a sweet invitation to come to him. For those already in real relationship with him, here is the voice of Jesus reminding us what salvation and life are all about. Jesus’s sheep know (and are known by) him, and so they listen to his voice (10:15–16). They need his words, they desire his words, and they listen to him. They ask for the fruit he has promised to produce in and through them (15:7–8), and they step out in love for one another.

Whoever we are, this is a sweet, sweet invitation from the Lord of everything to keep on receiving and returning his love. Paul also urges believers to keep doing what believers do: “Continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel” (Colossians 1:23).

This hope of the gospel flows from the love of the Father and the Son. And Jesus loves his own as the Father loves him (15:9). So lean in! It’s no burden to rest in the vine and in that love, any more than it’s a burden to drink when we’re thirsty. If you’re somehow fearing Jesus’s rejection, then verse 4 is very good news — someone’s command to dwell or live in him, and him in us, cannot be withholding. Jesus’s command here is the sweetest and most generous of invitations.

To “abide,” then, is not some special spiritual technique, but instead the posture of trust in Jesus, resting in his love (15:9), lived out in glad obedience to him (15:10). It’s joy-full (15:11). And every branch united to him in two-way friendship is guaranteed fruit that will stand the test of time.

Share and Participate

It’s possible to hang around Jesus (and Christianity) and not actually be relating to Jesus. Someone can subscribe to doctrines, but not actually trust and lean into the one who is love and life. Someone can show up, but not love and worship Christ — and so misunderstand the very nature of the Christian life.

What should worry us? Independence, being determined to go it alone, apart from Jesus (15:5). Peril consists in refusing to come and be cleansed, pruned, and beautified by the Father (15:2–3); refusing to lean into Christ’s love; refusing to be vitally united to him. Do you see obedience as a burden rather than the chance to share and participate in everything that Jesus and the Father love (15:10)?

When someone you really want to be with says, “Marry me!” you know it’s not just a sweet invitation for that day or year, but one that anticipates living and dwelling together as one, every day into the future. It’s a statement of commitment, each to the other — to keep inviting the other person in relationally, and to keep making oneself available. It anticipates being reciprocated. And there’s the joy of a beautiful, ongoing dynamic.

“Abide in me, and I in you,” Jesus says. Eternally.

That’s got to be stabilizing, to say the least!

I won’t soon forget visiting “Angola,” the Louisiana State Penitentiary, and nation’s largest maximum-security prison. In November 2009, I accompanied John Piper as he preached in chapel to hundreds of inmates, broadcast to thousands. Beforehand, he spoke and prayed for half an hour with a man just seven weeks prior to his execution by lethal injection.

Much could be said about Angola, once considered the nation’s most dangerous prison, and its stunning transformation (not just morally but spiritually) under warden Burl Cain, beginning in 1995. Cain, a lifelong Southern Baptist, wasn’t shy about sharing his Christian faith and welcoming influences like Piper. He took fire for it over the years.

Doubtless, Cain instituted a breadth of important reforms and gospel-friendly initiatives, but he’s often remembered for prohibiting profanity from both inmates and guards. It was a striking decision. Seeing with unusual clarity the complex and catalytic relationship between words and behavior, Cain did the almost unthinkable: he outlawed cussing at the state pen.

How many of us would think a maximum-security prison of 6,000 murderers, rapists, armed robbers, and habitual felons had far bigger fish to fry than profanity? Why even bother?

Words Give Rise to Action

Cain believed that violent words not only express but also entrench, and cultivate, violent instincts in the soul that eventually give rise to violent acts. Giving voice to unrighteous anger puts us one step closer to acting on it.

Soon enough, even Cain’s many detractors found the results difficult to dispute. In 2004, The Washington Post reported on the rise in morale and the plummet in violence at Angola:

The year before Cain arrived, there were nearly 300 attacks on the staff and 766 inmate-on-inmate assaults, half of which were with weapons. . . . Since Cain took over as warden, inmate attacks on the staff have plunged nearly 70 percent, and inmate-on-inmate violence has dropped 44 percent.

“Giving voice to unrighteous anger puts us one step closer to acting on it.”

Surely, the ban against profanity didn’t do all the work. Hundreds of inmates, if not thousands, not only cleaned up their mouths, but testified to Christ’s cleansing their hearts — and that will transform any prison. Still, the correlation between words and eventual behaviors is not one to ignore. And it may be far more important to life outside of prison than many of us are prone to think.

Holy Fight and Flight

Healthy Christians do not make peace with sin. As we grow in love for Christ, we grow to delight in holiness. Yet we live in a world of sin, and still have indwelling sin within us. So, we often discuss various holy fight-and-flight tactics against temptation.

For one, we want to be ready to resist sin when we encounter temptation. Not only do we “resist the devil” (James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:9), but we also resist “in [our] struggle against sin” (Hebrews 12:4) — against temptations from without and from within. In a moment of temptation, we want to fight, resist, make holy war.

Another important strategy is flight. When Potiphar’s wife tempted Joseph, he fled. So too, the apostle Paul writes, “Flee youthful passions” (2 Timothy 2:22), “Flee sexual immorality” (1 Corinthians 6:18), and “Flee from idolatry” (1 Corinthians 10:14). If you find yourself in the presence of some temptation, and it’s in your power to leave, then by all means flee.

Avoidance is a third time-tested plan. Before the moment of fight-or-flight confronts us, we seek to avoid some temptations altogether. For instance, avoid divisive people (Romans 16:17; 2 Timothy 3:5). Avoid quarreling (Titus 3:2). Avoid “irreverent babble” (2 Timothy 2:16). Avoid “foolish controversies” (Titus 3:9).

However, one particular tactic we might be prone to overlook in the multi-front war against sin involves the power of words. Warden Cain was onto something — not just (negatively) to curb violence at a prison, but also (positively) for the Christian life.

Our Own Words Shape Us

Not only is it true, as Jesus says, that “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart” (Matthew 15:18), but our heart-expressing words also echo back to move and shape us.

On the one hand, to speak evil is an additional step, subtle as it may be, to thinking and feeling evil. As we give vent and verbal expression to otherwise inaudible evil in us, we reinforce it. It takes root. One little word at a time, we habituate ourselves to sin. Now, we’re one small (but not insignificant) degree closer to acting on it. And on the other hand, when we speak against sin rising in us — and speak for the joy of righteousness — we marshal the power of words to mold our hearts for holiness.

To be clear, the point here is not “stop talking about sin” but rather, declare to your own soul sin’s deception, and miserable outcomes. In other words, do talk to yourself about your own sin. And in the moment of temptation, tell yourself “no” and why.

Evil Curbed and Smothered

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) knew of the power of our own words in leading to, or away, from sin. He writes in Life Together,

Often we combat evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words. . . [I]solated thoughts of judgment [against our neighbor] can be curbed and smothered by never allowing them the right to be uttered, except as a confession of sin. (90–91)

Before saying more about his insight, first note confession as an exception. To confess sin as sin is not to incline ourselves to relapse, but instead to make war against it. Which means that real confession is not mere admission, but a form of renouncing our sin.

“Real confession is not mere admission, but a form of renouncing our sin.”

But then notice the role our own words have to play in the pursuit of holiness, and the war against sin. Our souls can be cauldrons of good and ill. Dwelling in us, for now, is both remaining sin and the very Spirit of God. Evil thoughts grow as we voice them with approval, and they diminish — are “curbed and smothered” — as we deny them the dignity of utterance (or utter them only in spirit of confession).

Renounce Ungodliness

At the height of his letter to Titus, the apostle Paul writes about the appearing of God, in Christ, and the disappearing of our sin, in time, as we pursue holiness. And he uses the word renounce to acknowledge the place our words can have in combatting sin:

The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age . . . (Titus 2:11–12)

The grace of God — manifest and incarnate in Christ — not only saves sinners by covering our failings but also trains us. God’s grace is too great to simply forgive our sins and leave us in them. He loves his sons and daughters enough to train us for new and better life, for genuine holiness, for the freedom and joy of an existence less and less encumbered by sin. And here, remarkably, the link between God’s training grace and our godly living involves our own words as we renounce ungodliness.

‘Be Gone, Satan!’

The pattern is one we find even in Jesus, who leveraged the power of his words against sin and the devil. In the wilderness, he renounced temptation audibly as he quoted Scripture to combat Satan’s enticements, culminating with “Be gone, Satan!” (Matthew 4:10). So too he later responded to Peter’s foolish statement (that Jesus would never go to the cross) with “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mark 8:33).

There is power, for good and godliness, in a clear, settled “no” — whether in our own heads, or out loud to ourselves, and all the better in confession to God or neighbor. Liberated and energized by God’s grace, and looking to the reward of superior joy, we are given the dignity of participating in God’s decisive action in making us holy. And even before it involves our behavior, it can begin with our words.

The words we speak, especially when pointed, shape our souls for good or evil. Renouncing sin, as an expression of holy desires in a divided heart, is no empty act. When our renouncing of sin and Satan proceed from a heart growing in its disdain for sin, and delight in holiness, our words reinforce and buttress and fortify our hearts. Words of renunciation against specific sins and temptations are not time-outs from the actual fight but a valuable weapon in the campaign.

Declare Your No

Because of this power in the act of renouncing, some baptismal traditions, going deep into an annals of church history, ask the baptismal candidate, right there in the waters, as we do at our church, “Do you renounce Satan, and all his works, and all his ways?” Baptism itself is a kind of public forsaking of sin and Satan and a confession of Christ, but there is added power for shaping the soul, banishing demons, and strengthening the church, to not just depict it but declare it — and not just at baptism, but in the everyday waters of temptation.

When pride feeds us thoughts of being better than others, we respond with, “No, no good will come from boosting self, compared to others. I’m an unworthy servant, and any good in me is only by God’s grace. Pride, be humbled.”

Or, when feeling envious over another’s abilities or applause, “No, envy, my Father knows exactly what I need and when. Rejoice in his gifts to others.”

When tempted by lust, “No, God’s design and command is best: one woman, my wife, for life. Lust, you are foolish, and not welcome here.”

Tempted to gossip, “No, there is more joy in the self-control of holding my tongue than sinning against someone with my words.”

Or, when tempted by greed, “No, my Father owns it all, and I will share in it fully in due time. Greed, be gone.”

And all the better when we can renounce sin in the very words of Scripture: When angry with others, “No, the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). Anger, however righteous or not, be put away (Colossians 3:8).

Temptation thrives, and grows, when unacknowledged and unaddressed. But with the help of the Spirit, and through the power of words, we can say “No!” and drive it away with God’s better promises.

If you were to ask me to name my favorite hymn, I’d probably hem and haw, then list a bunch of favorites, and end up saying, “It depends.” I mean, how do you choose a single favorite hymn? But if you were to ask me what hymn I sing most often when I’m alone with God, that would be easy: “Be Thou My Vision.” If that makes it my favorite, so be it.

For me, it’s become a love song, kind of like the familiar phrases I default to when telling my wife how much I love her, which over time have become infused with great depths of emotional meaning. The verses of this hymn give voice to my intimate delight in and longing for the Lover of my soul. When I sing it in private, just me and my piano, it’s rare when I can sing it without tears.

Typically, when a song touches me deeply, I’m curious to know more about who wrote it and why. I guess it’s easier to take hymns somewhat for granted. I’ve loved “Be Thou My Vision” for decades, but I never thought to look up its backstory until recently.

I discovered that this hymn’s origin is veiled in the misty past of ancient Ireland. We do know that the hymn’s progenitor is a poem that’s more than a millennium old, composed in Old Gaelic and consisting of sixteen couplets. Irish tradition claims its author was a beloved sixth-century Celtic poet named St. Dallán Forgaill, but scholars have linguistic reasons to doubt this claim. All we know is that the writer certainly was a poet and sure seems to have been a saint.

Thank God for Scholars and Editors

My search wasn’t in vain, because it revealed people God used to turn that ancient poem into the precious song we have today. Thank God for Mary Byrne (1880–1931), who dragged the poem out of academic obscurity by translating the ancient Gaelic into English. And thank God for Eleanor Hull (1860–1935), who chose twelve of the sixteen couplets from Byrne’s literal translation, and then skillfully crafted them into rhymes.

And thank God for the editors of the Irish Church Hymnal, who selected ten of Hull’s couplets, combined them into five four-line verses, and then, with a stroke of inspired genius, paired those deeply moving verses with an achingly beautiful Irish folk tune they named “Slane” (in honor of St. Patrick’s famous Easter festival fire on Slane Hill, which he burned in defiance of a pagan Irish king).

The hymn was first published in the 1919 edition of that Irish hymnal, and the rest, as they say, is history. “Be Thou My Vision” soon appeared in hymnals around the world, many of which trimmed it down to the four verses most of us know and love today.

Why do so many, like me, love this hymn so much? Because it gives poetic voice to our deep love and longing for the triune God, who is the Light of our lives (John 8:12), our ever-present, indwelling Word of life (1 John 1:1), the great Treasure of our hearts (Luke 12:34), and soon the Heaven of heaven for us forever (Psalm 73:25–26).

Thy Presence My Light

If the ancient author ever titled the poem, that too has been lost to the mists of time. For centuries it was known simply as “A Prayer.” But it’s hard to imagine a better title than the poem’s first four words, “Be thou my vision,” which in Old Gaelic read, “Rop tú mo bhoile.”

Verse 1, in my view, begins just where it should: a prayer for God to enlighten the eyes of our hearts that we may be filled with his hope (Ephesians 1:18). Listen to how beautifully the lyrics convey the biblical metaphor of light as understanding:

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art;Thou my best thought, by day or by night;Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Implicitly woven into this verse are the New Testament references of Jesus as “the light of the world” and “the light of life” (John 8:12). But the words also carry an echo of one of my favorite verses from the Psalms:

With you is the fountain of life;     in your light do we see light. (Psalm 36:9)

Everyone who has known deep darkness of any kind — the darkness of sin or grief or pain or depression or loneliness or spiritual oppression — and has seen, however dimly, the Light of life shining in their darkness, understands how meaningful this verse can be. It resonates with the hope that this light will not ultimately be overcome by our darkness.

Be thou my vision, O Lord, for you are the light of my life.

Thou My True Word

The prayer of verse 2 builds on the prayer of verse 1, asking that God would fill us with the riches of his wisdom and knowledge (Romans 11:33):

Be Thou my wisdom, and Thou my true Word;I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;Thou my great Father; I Thy true son;Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Notice how simply this verse expresses the profound and mysterious New Testament teaching that requires pages to unpack in prose: that Christian wisdom comes from the Father and Son (our true Word) dwelling inside us through the Holy Spirit (John 14:23, 26), a gift we receive through our adoption as sons (Ephesians 1:5). The wisdom we’re praying for here is clearly not “a wisdom of this age,” but a wisdom that can only be “spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:6, 14).

Be thou my wisdom, O Lord, for you are the ultimate Truth.

My Treasure Thou Art

Now we come to my favorite verse of this great hymn, the one most likely to prompt tears:

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise;Thou mine inheritance, now and always;Thou and Thou only first in my heart;High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art.

Verse 3 is my favorite — not because the other verses are less true or less hope-giving or less precious, but because Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:34). Our treasure is whatever we love and long for most — what most satisfies, enthralls, and therefore captivates our hearts. And in this fallen age, where even our best love for our great Treasure is defective and lacking, our love is almost always accompanied by a desire to love him more perfectly, more completely. Hence, my tears, a sweet, melancholic mixture of love and longing.

So, I love this verse, the heart of the hymn, the Love Song within the love song. Because God, as the next verse will say, is the Heart of our hearts — the Treasure that makes his light beautiful, his wisdom desirable, and his heaven so heavenly.

Be thou my Treasure, O Lord, first in my heart now and always.

O Bright Heaven’s Sun

Verse 4 ends the hymn just where it should: with the great “blessed hope” of the Christian life (Titus 2:13), when “we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

High King of heaven, my victory won,May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun;Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

If our heart is always with our treasure, and if God is our Treasure, then the Heaven of heaven will be the Heart of our heart. And the Sun of heaven will enable us to see more light than we’ve ever seen, “for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:23). And so it will be, always and forever. To which we say, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20).

What a priceless gift, this hymn. Thank you, Lord, for that ancient Celtic poet whose God-entranced heart overflowed so eloquently through his quill. And thank you for those throughout history whose collective labors have made this great song of love and longing available to us. And thank you for the gifted Celtic folk musicians whose sweet, haunting melody makes it so wonderful to sing.

But most of all, thank you, Lord, for being the Light of our lives, our ever-present, indwelling Word of life, the great Treasure of our hearts, and someday the Heaven of heaven.

Yes, O Lord, be thou our vision, now in this darkened age, and soon — may it be soon! — in unveiled, eternal glory with unclouded eyes.