Just one more thing: Living to bear fruit
I read when Henry Longfellow was well along in years - his head white as snow, his cheeks red as a rose - a friend and admirer asked him how he kept so vigorous and continued to write so beautifully. Pointing to a blooming apple tree, he said: "That apple tree is very old, but I never saw prettier blossoms upon it than those it now bears. The tree grows a little new wood every year, and I suppose it is out of that new wood that those blossoms come. Like the apple tree, I try to grow a little new wood each year." Are we as God's children striving to just live or do we live to bear fruit? Paul wrote in Philippians 1:22. "If it is to be life in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me" (Revised Standard Version). For the apostle Paul to live and not bear fruit would have been unthinkable. Christ warned: ...
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