April 28, 2007

• Bringing Forth Fruit to God

  I know I quote Jonathan Edwards a lot on my blogs, but I find his sermons to hit me between the eyes.  It convicted me that I need to think about what I'm doing in ministry and make sure that I am serving God for the right reasons.  I need to let go of my pride and serve my Savior in humility; to do everything I can to bring glory to the Lord.  Jonathan Edwards talks about the usefulness of a human being and how as believers we need to be people who bear fruit for God.  He says,

  There is no fruit brought forth to God, where there is nothing done in any wise from love to God, or from any true respect to him.  God looketh at the heart.  He doth not stand in need of our services, neither is he benefitted by anything that we can do.  He doth not receive anything of us, because it benefits him, but only as a suitable testimony of our love and respect to him.  This is the fruit that he seeks.  Men themselves will not accept of those shows of friendship, which they think are hypocritical, and come not from the heart.  How much less should God, who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins (mind) of the children of men!  John 4:23, "God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."  Inquire, therefore, whether you ever in your lives did the least thing out of love to God.  Have you not done all for yourselves?  Zechariah 7:5,6:  When ye have fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh month, even those seventy years, did ye at all feast unto me, even unto me?  And when ye did eat, and when ye did drink, did ye not eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves.  (Jonathan Edwards from Wicked Men Useful in Their Destruction Only in Sermons of Jonathan Edwards, p. 80)

  WHATEVER YOU DO, DO IT OUT OF LOVE AND RESPECT FOR GOD!

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