Pruning and Fruit-bearing - 20 cont'.

Notice as well that Christ received the wound by which we have been grafted in.  Paul speaks of the grafting process in Romans 11:17, where he speaks of our having been grafted into the Vine.  Now before a graft can be made in any plant, what has to happen to the plant?  It has to be wounded.  A cut has to be made that severely wounds the stalk, and this cut opens the wound into which the graft is inserted.  Thus the graft obtains its life as a result of the wound.

The strength of your life and mine comes from the atonement--it comes from no other place.  Hiding in the atonement is His power.  It isn't because Jesus Christ was the Creator, as great and marvelous at that was; nor is it because He demonstrated miraculous power in calling forth the dead, which was also wonderful and thrilling.  The one thing that gives me life is that Jesus as God was willing to die--was wounded--enabling me to be grafted in and to receive life.  In spite of that, we go along complacently thinking that life comes as a result of doing something good.  That's ridiculous!  The only source of life is to be found in partaking of that sap, which is none other than the blood of Jesus Christ.  There is no other source of life!  If we don't receive it there, we simply don't have it.

Reading on, "They must have a change of heart."  Who?  The branch.  The branch, which was cut off from its own stock and put into the True Vine to receive the new heart, is going to receive a new source of life and will have a new kind of fruit as it draws nourishment from the Vine.

The branch is going to have a new kind of experience--termed a new heart--because the heart of Jesus Christ is now supplying the life flow to that branch.

Do you want that new kind of experience, I sure do, I'm in the same boat as everyone else.  I am still learning and trying to surrender all so that I may have that new kind of experience.  God is definitely working in my life minute by minute to give me His kind of character which I desperately need.
Let's pray for each other each day to receive that kind of experience.  Grandma Joan