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Humble Hero
branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into
the fire, and they are burned.”
“Every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more
fruit.” From the Twelve who had followed Jesus, one, a withered
branch, was about to be taken away. The rest would pass under the
pruning knife of bitter trial. The pruning will cause pain, but it is
the Father who applies the knife. He does not work with a reckless
hand. Excessive foliage requires pruning to keep it from drawing
away the life current from the fruit. Overgrowth must be cut out to
give room for the healing beams of the Sun of Righteousness. The
Vinedresser prunes away the harmful growth so that the fruit may
be more abundant.
“By this My Father is glorified,” Jesus said, “that you bear much
fruit.” Through you, God desires to reveal the holiness, kindness,
and compassion of His own character. Yet the Savior does not ask
the disciples to work to bear fruit. He tells them to abide in Him.
Through the Word, Christ abides in His followers. The life of Christ
in you produces the same fruits as in Him. Living in Christ, clinging
to Christ, supported by Christ, drawing nourishment from Christ,
you bear fruit after the likeness of Christ.
Jesus’ very first instruction when He was alone with His disciples
in the upper chamber was, “A new commandment I give to you, that
you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one
another.” This commandment was new to the disciples, for they had
not loved one another as Christ had loved them. But through His
life and death they would receive a new understanding of love. The
command to love one another had a new meaning in the light of His
self-sacrifice.
When people are bound together not by force or self-interest,
but by love, they show the working of an influence that is more than
human. It is evidence that God is restoring His image in humanity.
This love, visible in the church, will surely stir Satan’s anger. “If the
world hates you,” Jesus said, “you know that it hated Me before it
hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own.
Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the
world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said
to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted
Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will