As Paul sat in his prison cell, I wonder if he had regrets. “Have I done any good? Have I wasted all my talents? Will there be any lasting fruit?” As Peter prepared to hang on a cross, I wonder if he evaluated his life as a success or a failure.<\/p>\n
God does not view things the way we do. We look at a work of art and say, “That man used his talent in a wonderful way! He created something that will last!” But God says lasting fruit can only come one way – through His Son. These are Jesus’ words: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”<\/p>\n
The world looked at the well-educated Paul in prison and said, “What wasted talent!” But God saw one who used his talent in the wisest of ways. The world did not call Peter a success. But the Lord was proud of the fisherman who abandoned all to become a disciple of the Master. The secret of bearing lasting fruit will never be found in the world’s wisdom, but only in God’s. And Jesus is the wisdom of God.<\/p>\n
As Jesus sees men strive to achieve and build on earth, He offers an invitation that holds the secret for true success: “Come to Me.” If we humbly come and honestly pray, “Lord, take all I am and all I have and bring forth fruit that will please the Father”… He will do it.<\/p>\n
“Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him…” Philippians 3:7-9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Paul sat in his prison cell, I wonder if he had regrets. “Have I done any good? Have I wasted all my talents? Will there be any lasting fruit?” As Peter prepared to hang on a cross, I wonder if he evaluated his life as a success or a failure. God does not view […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jesus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1430,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions\/1430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/airwoof.org\/journey\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}