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God’s Grace Sweetens Every Affliction, December 7
I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. 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 15:1, 2
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“Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in
me, and I in you.” The very same sap and nourishment that nourishes the parent
stock, nourishes the branch abiding in the vine. Christ is represented by the vine
that imparts the nourishment, the vitality, the life, the spirit, the power, that the
branch can bear fruit, and then when affliction and disappointment come, you
are to show altogether a different character of fruit than the world. There is the
evidence that you are connected with Jesus Christ, and that there is a power that
sustains you in all your afflictions and disappointments and trials; and this power
and this grace sweetens every affliction. [When] the cup of suffering may be
placed to your lips, there is a Comforter and Helper. The cup of consolation is
placed in the hand, and it may be the happiest period of your life.
“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.”... Here are the most
precious jewels of truth for every individual soul of us. Here is the only election
in the Bible, and you can prove yourself elected of Christ by being faithful; you
can prove yourself the chosen of Christ by abiding in the vine....
Christ tells us plainly that the whole power, the whole fruit-bearing quality,
is in the parent vine stock. Then let them be abiding in Christ, and drawing the
nourishment from Christ, and what shall we see? We shall see something, the
world will see something. There is a clear line of distinction between the believing
and the unbelieving, between those that obey God, and those that disobey Him;
there is a decided and marked difference in the fruit they bear.... The fruit is the
character....
Every ability that you have, every power that you have, your reasoning powers
every talent that you have, every capability that you have, is to be brought right
into the religious life, and the kindness, the compassion, the pitifulness, the love
of God, is the fruit borne upon the branch that is grafted into the living Vine.
And then as the rich clusters ... bow down that branch, showing that those that
bear the most fruit, the richest clusters, have the true humility of lowliness, like
Christ. He says, Learn of Me. Come unto Me. Now let us everyone hear it. It
is the invitation not from the speaker, but it is the invitation from Jesus Christ
Himself.—
Manuscript 43, 1894
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