“And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.”—1 John 2:28 NASB

The key to having confidence at the coming of Christ is the same key that Christ already gave us in John 15: Abide in Christ. ““Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.” (John 15:4, NASB95)

I take from this verse that some, who have not abided in Christ, will indeed shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. We do not want to be those people. We want to be people of confidence that wait eagerly for Christ’s revelation at his return.

How do we abide in Christ? We devote ourselves to his words and life, we obey his commands—and so demonstrate our love for him—and we encourage others to do the same. We don’t earn Christ’s pleasure by so doing, we demonstrate what is already inside of us, our behavior shows who we really are.