In Christ

John 15:5

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.

Theres a couple of thoughts that have been brewing in my head over the last couple of mouths. It has to do with Believers in Christ. That is, every part of who we are is in Him. As I read through the gospels i see this over and over again. And it's the little phrase; in Christ, in him...who we are as Christians is rooted and grounded in Christ and his work, not our own.

In the Gospel of John (the above quote) Jesus himself mentions "in me" and "apart from me".
"In me" refers to those who call on Christ, those who have placed there lives in his hands because they were made alive and responded to Christ. "Apart from me" = nothing. Those who haven't put there trust in Christ, regardless of what they can "do", in reality aren't doing anything.

The main concept I've been pondering over is that every aspect of our life is in Christ. Paul talks about "even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ..." (Eph 2)
combine this with what Jesus says in John 15 you get a great concept of spiritual regeneration.
The reason one can do nothing apart from Christ is that there "dead", and it's only in Christ that one is made "alive".

John 1:4
"In him was life, and the life was the light of men." Jesus is the only one who in and of himself has life. I as a created being have borrowed life from God, yet Christ didn't have to borrow life since he was life. Jesus life, is the light of men, or another way of saying it is 'the light of the world.'

That's why in the epistles you see the contrast of light and darkness, before Christ came we lived in darkness, but those of us who respond to his grace have been "transfered" into the kingdom of light. And that "light we know have is spiritual "life" because we are in Christ. Apart from Christ there is no life and no light, and you can do nothing...