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From Heaven With Love
dependent upon divine power. “I can of Mine own self do nothing.”
John 5:30
.
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.” On the
hills of Palestine our heavenly Father had planted this goodly Vine.
Many were attracted by the beauty of this Vine, and declared its
heavenly origin. But the leaders in Israel trampled the plant under
their unholy feet. After men thought they had killed it, the heavenly
Husbandman took it and replanted it on the other side of the wall.
The vine stock was to be no longer visible. It was hidden from the
rude assaults of men. But the branches of the Vine hung over the
wall, and through them grafts might still be united to the Vine.
The connection of the branch with the vine, Jesus said, repre-
sents the relation His followers are to sustain to Him. The scion
is engrafted into the living vine, and fiber by fiber, vein by vein, it
grows into the vine stock. So the soul receives life through connec-
tion with Christ. The sinner unites His weakness to Christ’s strength,
his emptiness to Christ’s fullness. Then he has the mind of Christ.
The humanity of Christ has touched our humanity, and our humanity
has touched divinity.
This union must be maintained. Christ said, “Abide in Me, and
I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide
in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in Me.” This is no
off-and-on connection. The branch becomes a part of the living vine.
The life you have received from Me, said Jesus, can be preserved
only by continual communion. Without Me you cannot overcome
sin or resist temptation. We are to cling to Jesus and receive from
Him by faith the perfection of His own character.
The root sends its nourishment through the branch to the outer-
most twig. “He that abideth in Me,” said Jesus, “and I in him, the
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same bringeth forth much fruit: for without Me ye can do nothing.”
When we live by faith on the Son of God, the fruits of the Spirit will
be seen in our lives; not one will be missing.
“My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth
not fruit He taketh away.” There may be an apparent connection
with Christ without a real union with Him by faith. A profession of
religion places men in the church, but the character shows whether
they are in connection with Christ. If they bear no fruit, they are
false branches. “If a man abide not in Me,” said Christ, “he is cast