"I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me - and I in him - bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing.If one remains in the vine one cannot help but bear fruit. The apples of an apple tree naturally occur because they are the fruit of the apple tree. Certain things will become true of you because you have been grafted into the vine. You will bear fruit that glorifies God. That you have become a Christian glorifies God. God is at work within you."
for the one bringing forth in you both the desire and the effort--for the sake of his good pleasure--is God.He has begun a work in you and will bring it to completion.
“For I am sure of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”What fruit you display is because he makes you able to display it. You are now in the vine, so you will produce fruit. God will make sure of that.
Were you still a wild branch you would not be able to understand what God wants and why, for
The unbeliever does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.and many of us still remember what it was like when we ...
... lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest ...Only when the Father draws one to himself is one able to respond, to bear fruit, to give sacrifices of praise. The Fall made us all God haters. We cannot understand and we cannot love and we cannot serve and we cannot bear fruit unless the Father draws, the Son saves and the Spirit fills.
Nothing – no thing – great or small can be achieved such that God is glorified except it have its genesis and its revelation in Christ and from our abiding him. Others do great things and are applauded by the world but they already have their reward – people think well of them. But the only way to have God’s applause is for the action to stem from faith in him,
... and whatever is not from faith is sin.So cooperate with him! Do not resist being purged, pruned and tended. Abide! Remain! And do so actively! Actively submit to the presence, power and purposes of God in Christ through his Spirit.
As we abide in the vine as branches, so we receive what we need for spiritual growth from the vine. But we are not alone on the vine. We are each one of many branches and we each help the other branches to grow through prayer, service and encouragement.
© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2018
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