With Christ's Help Pursue Fruitfulness

If the church is a separated portion, then we should walk as people of a separated condition from the world. To ensure this we must be subject to his pruning and dressing. It is so far from being an ill sign that Christ follows us with afflictions, it is rather a sure sign of his love. Men care not for heath and wilderness, upon which they bestow no effort. So, when God prunes us by crosses and afflictions, and sows good seed in us, it is a sign he means to dwell with us, and delight in us.
Let us bless God that our lot has fallen into such a pleasant place, to be planted in the church, the place of God's delight. This should move us to be fruitful. For men will endure a fruitless tree in the waste wilderness, but not in their garden. It is strange to be fruitless and barren in this place that we live in, being watered with the dew of heaven. How fearfully a fruitless state is threatened by the Holy Spirit, that 'it is near unto cursing and burning' (Heb. 6:8). Visible churches, if they prosper not, God will remove the hedge, and lay them waste, preferring a garden elsewhere. Sometimes God's plants prosper better in Babylon than in Judea. We must learn from him how and where to please him. Obedience from a broken heart is the best sacrifice. Let us then strive and labour to be fruitful in our places and callings. The blessed man is said to be ‘a tree planted by the waterside, that brings forth fruit in due season' (Psa. 1:3).
The church may seem to lie open to all incursions, but it has an invisible hedge about it, a wall without it, and a well within it. God himself is a wall of fire about it (Zech. 2:5), and his Spirit a well of living waters running through it to refresh and comfort it. This is a good plea for the church: ‘The church is yours; fence it, water it, defend it, keep the wild boar out of it.'

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Love of Christ (Bowels Opened), pp. 12-14
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