Reader! are you a fruit-bearer in your Lord's vineyard?
Are you seeking to make life one grand act of consecration to His glory; one
thank-offering for His unmerited love? You may be unable to exhibit much fruit
in the eye of the world. Your circumstances and position in life may forbid you
to point to any splendid services, or laborious and imposing efforts in the
cause of God. It matters not. It is often those fruits that are unseen
and unknown to man, ripening in seclusion, that He values most, the quiet,
lowly walk; patience and submission, gentleness and humility, putting
yourself unreservedly in His hands, willing to be led by Him even in darkness saying, Not my will, but Your will, the unselfish spirit, the
meek bearing of an injury, the unostentatious kindness; these are some of the
"fruits" which your Heavenly Father loves, and by which He is glorified.
Perchance it may be with you the season of trial, the
chamber of protracted sickness, the time of desolating
bereavement, some furnace seven times heated. Herein, too, you may
sweetly glorify your God. Never is your Heavenly Father more glorified by
His children on earth, than when, in the midst of these furnace-fires, He
listens to nothing but the gentle breathings of confiding faith and love, "Let
Him do what seems good unto Him." Yes, you can, there in the furnace, glorify
Him in a way which angels cannot do in a world where they have no trials. They
can glorify God only with the crown; you can glorify Him with the
cross and the prospect of the crown together! Ah, if He is dealing
severely with you, if He, as the Great Gardener, is pruning His
vines, lopping their boughs, and stripping off their luxuriant
branches, remember the end! "He prunes it, that it may bring forth
more fruit," and "Herein is My Father glorified!"
[John MacDuff]
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John 15:2 ... Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
John 15:8 ... Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
Galatians 5:22-23 ... But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. ❤
