THE FATHER GLORIFIED
Herein is My Father Glorified, that Ye Bear Much Fruit--John 15:8
How can we glorify God? Not by adding to His
glory or bringing Him any new glory that He has not. But simply by allowing His
glory to shine out through us, by yielding ourselves to Him, that His glory may
manifest itself in us and through us to the world. In a vineyard or a vine
bearing much fruit, the owner is glorified, as it tells of his skill and care.
In the disciple who bears much fruit, the Father is glorified. Before men and
angels, proof is given of the glory of God's grace and power; God's glory
shines out through him.
This is what Peter means when he writes: "He that
ministers, let him minister as of the ability that God giveth, that God in all
things may be glorified through Jesus Christ." As a man works and serves in a
power which comes from God alone, God gets all the glory. When we confess that
the ability came from God alone, he that does the work, and they who see it,
equally glorify God. It was God who did it. Men judge by the fruit of a garden
of what the gardener is. Men judge of God by the fruit that the branches of the
Vine of His planting bears. Little fruit brings little glory to God. It brings
no honor to either the Vine or the Husbandman. "That ye bear much fruit, herein
is my Father glorified."
We have sometimes mourned our lack of fruit, as a
loss to ourselves and our fellow men, with complaints of our feebleness as the
cause. Let us rather think of the sin and shame of little fruit as robbing God
of the glory He ought to get from us. Let us learn the secret of bringing glory
to God, serving of the ability which God giveth. The full acceptance of
Christ's Word, "You can do nothing"; the simple faith in God, who worketh all
in all; the abiding in Christ through whom the divine Husbandman does His work
and gets much fruit--this is the life that will bring glory to God.
Much fruit--God asks it; see that you give
it. God can be content with nothing less; be you content with nothing less. Let
these words of Christ--fruit, more fruit, much fruit--abide in you, until you
think as He does, and you be prepared to take from Him, the heavenly Vine, what
He has for you. Much fruit: herein is my Father glorified. Let the very height
of the demand be your encouragement. It is so entirely beyond your power, that
it throws you more entirely upon Christ, your true Vine. He can, He will, make
it true in you.
Much fruit--God asks because he needs. He
does not ask fruit from the branches of His Vine for show, to prove what He can
do. No; He needs it for the salvation of men: it is in that He is to be
glorified. Throw yourself in much prayer on your Vine and your Husbandman. Cry
to God and your Father to give you fruit to bring to men. Take the burden of
the hungry and the perishing on you, as Jesus did when He was moved with
compassion, and your power in prayer, and your abiding, and your bearing much
fruit to the glory of the Father will have a reality and a certainty you never
knew before.
The Father glorified. Blessed
prospect--God glorifying Himself in me, showing forth the glory of His goodness
and power in what He works in me, and through me. What a motive to bear much
fruit, just as much as He works in me! Father, glorify Thyself in me.