“The branch cannot bear fruit of itself.” 
              — John 15:4

How did you begin to bear fruit? It was when you came to Jesus and cast
yourselves on his great atonement, and rested on his finished
righteousness. Ah! what fruit you had then! Do you remember those early
days? Then indeed the vine flourished, the tender grape appeared, the
pomegranates budded forth, and the beds of spices gave forth their
smell. Have you declined since then? If you have, we charge you to
remember that time of love, and repent, and do thy first works. Be most
in those engagements which you have experimentally proved to draw you
nearest to Christ, because it is from him that all your fruits proceed.
Any holy exercise which will bring you to him will help you to bear
fruit. The sun is, no doubt, a great worker in fruit-creating among the
trees of the orchard: and Jesus is still more so among the trees of his
garden of grace. When have you been the most fruitless? Has not it been
when you have lived farthest from the Lord Jesus Christ, when you have
slackened in prayer, when you have departed from the simplicity of your
faith, when your graces have engrossed your attention instead of your
Lord, when you have said, “My mountain standeth firm, I shall never be
moved”; and have forgotten where your strength dwells-has not it been
then that your fruit has ceased? Some of us have been taught that we
have nothing out of Christ, by terrible abasements of heart before the
Lord; and when we have seen the utter barrenness and death of all
creature power, we have cried in anguish, “From him all my fruit must
be found, for no fruit can ever come from me.” We are taught, by past
experience, that the more simply we depend upon the grace of God in
Christ, and wait upon the Holy Spirit, the more we shall bring forth
fruit unto God. Oh! to trust Jesus for fruit as well as for life.

On this day...

• The Nicene Creed - 2024
• The Apostles Creed - 2024
• Their fear of me is a commandment taught by men - 2011
• Strange is his deed! and to work his work--alien is his work! - 2011
• Works - The Lord's Doings - 2011
• Works of God - 2011
• The song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb - 2011
• The winepress was trodden outside the city - 2011
• I will make with you an everlasting covenant - 2011
• Giving of Tithes - 2011