Enjoy the following quote from Malcolm Smith:
"The branches of the vine cannot function without being vitally united to the flow of vine sap that makes the vine a living vine. The life of the vine is the energy, the life source, that produces the fruit that is to be found on the branches. The branches produce the fruit, but they do so from the sap that is surging through them and it is natural for vine-life to produce grapes; the branches do not labor at an impossible task of producing a fruit foreign to the nature of the vine.
The living of the love of God in our behaviors is not the ultimate marathon act of our willpower attempting to be like Jesus. Let us accept the fact that the life that the new covenant portrays is impossible to for the unaided human to accomplish. It can only take place by Jesus Himself living in us by His Spirit; He becomes the source and the ability to live the life of divine love that is the command of the new covenant. When this is understood, the Christian life is not a labor to produce a lifestyle that is foreign and awkward to us. When the center and source of our life is the fountain of love Himself, a lifestyle of divine love is not foreign and awkward, but natural.
The mark of dead religion is to be found in the dedication of the devotee to keep vows with a view of pleasing God."
Grace=Peace,
Jeremy
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