In our last visit together, we gave attention to a Christian woman's spiritual leadership. Recognizing that the problems which face our world today are basically spiritual, Christian women desire to be a dramatic source of solution to sit uations around them. But only God can enable us to be the fruitful Christians He com manded us to be. Jesus said, "You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain" (John 15:16). We will be fruitful— intro ducing others to Christ and evi dencing the fruit of the Spirit — only as we allow the Holy Spirit to control our lives. There are two aspects of believ ers as branches of the vine that I would like to emphasize. The first is dependence on Christ. Jesus says, "For apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). An Old Tes tament writer stated, "We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon Thee" (II Chronicles 20:12). Paul says to the Corinthian church, "Not that we are adequate in our selves to consider anything as com ing from ourselves, but our ade quacy is from Cod" (II Corinthians 3:5). The second factor is our insepa rable relationship with Christ. Jesus says " . . . I am with you always") (Matthew 28:20). He prayed to the Father, "I in them, and thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me" (John 17:23). No power can sever this rela tionship. "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, Page 6
nor principalities, nor things pres ent, nor things to come, nor pow ers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." If these aspects are true of our relationship with Christ, what causes the Christian to become un faithful? Two of the major causes of unfaithfulness are worldliness, or "the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of riches" (Matthew 13:22); and failure to invest life's God-given resources, as shown in Jesus' parable in which the slave merely buried what had been en trusted to him rather than invest ing it. The Christian who is unfruitful can expect pruning and purging
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