十一月十三日
自己就不能结果子。（约15：4）
你怎样开头结果子呢？乃是当你来到耶稣面前，投靠他的救赎，信赖他所成就的义。
那时你结了什麽果子呢？你还记得开头时的情形吗？那时葡萄树很茂盛，果子累累，石榴开花结果，香花畦放香。从那时起你曾堕落吗？若你曾堕落过，我们劝你回想当初的爱，幷要悔改，行起初所行的。惟有这样才能使你亲近基督，因爲你一切的果子都是从他来的。凡能把你带到他面前的方法就能帮助你结果子。果树结果子少不了太阳，恩园中的树木更少不了耶稣。
你什麽时候最不能结果子呢？不是当你远离主耶稣基督，当你懒于祷告，当你偏离纯正的信仰，当你注重你的德行过于主，当你说“我的山坚立，我必不至动摇”而忘记你的力量从何而来的时候，便停止结果了吗？我们有人因爲在主面前极力抑压自己的心，就知道我们若没有基督便一无所有；当我们看到一切世人的能力都是贫乏无力，必至死亡时，我们就痛苦地说：“我一切的果子都从他而得，因我幷不能结出果子来。”我们从过去的经验知道，我们若专心在基督里倚靠神的恩典，幷等候圣灵，我们就能爲神结出更多的果子来。我们的结果，和生活一样都要倚靠耶稣。
“向下扎根，向上结果。”
November
13
“The
branch cannot bear fruit of itself.”–John 15:4
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? Then indeed the
vine flourished, the tender grape appeared, the pomegranates budded forth, and
the beds of spices gave forth their smell. Have you declined since then? If you
have, we charge you to remember that time of love, and repent, and do thy first
works. Be most in those engagements which you have experimentally proved to
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. The sun is, no doubt, a great worker in fruit-creating among the trees
of the orchard: and Jesus is still more so among the trees of his garden of
grace. When have you been the most fruitless? Has not it been when you have
lived farthest 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
engrossed your attention instead of your Lord, when you have said, “My
mountain standeth firm, I shall never be moved”; and have forgotten where
your strength dwells–has not it been then that your fruit has ceased? Some of
us have been taught that we have nothing out of Christ, by terrible abasements
of heart before the Lord; and when we have seen the utter barrenness and death
of all creature power, we have cried in anguish, “From him all my fruit must
be found, for no fruit can ever come from me.” We are taught, by past
experience, that the more simply we depend upon the grace of God in Christ, and
wait upon the Holy Spirit, the more we shall bring forth fruit unto God. Oh! to
trust Jesus for fruit as well as for life.
