Morning & Evening Daily Devotional Reading– November 13

by Charles H. Spurgeon, Revised and Edited by William C. Neff

“A branch can not bear fruit by itself.”

–John 15:4

As a Christian, how did you begin to bear fruit? It was when you came to Jesus and cast yourselves on His great atonement, and rested on His finished righteousness. Ah! what fruit you had then! Do you remember those early days? The new vine flourished, and the tender grapes appeared; the fruits of the garden budded forth, and the beds of spices gave forth their smell.

Have you declined since then? If you have, then I challenge you to remember that time of love, repent, and return to your first works. Get back into those things you found draw you nearest to Christ, because it is from Him that all your fruits proceed. Any holy exercise which will bring you to Him will help you to bear fruit.

When have you been the most fruitless? Hasn’t it been when you have lived the farthest away from the Lord Jesus Christ when you have slackened in prayer, when you have departed from the simplicity of your faith, when your graces have taken your attention away from the Lord Himself, forgetting that He is the source of your strength? Wasn’t it then that your fruitfulness ceased?

Some of us have been taught that we advance in the faith by abasing ourselves severely before the Lord; but, when we have seen the utter barrenness and death of all creature power, we have cried out in anguish, “All my fruit must come from Christ, and no fruit can ever come from me.” Experience teaches us that the more simply we depend upon the grace of God in Christ, and wait upon the Holy Spirit, the more fruit we will bear for God. [M&E]