The Fragrant Flower Of A Renewed Heart

We ought always to thank God for you … because your faith is growing more and more.
2 Thessalonians 1:3

A farmer plows, enriches the soil with fertilizer, and then waters throughout the dry months. And come harvest time, what does he have to show for his labors? Nothing—unless he has also planted the seed, for no amount of cultivation can make up for a lack of life.

Until you have the life of Christ within, there can be no Christ-honoring fruit without—a principle Charles Spurgeon probes from the example of the Thessalonians.

WALK WITH CHARLES SPURGEON
“The holiness which will honor Christ at last is a holiness based on faith in him, a holiness of which this was the root—that the Thessalonians trusted in Christ, and then, being saved, they loved their Lord and obeyed him. Holiness is an inner as well as an outer purity, arising out of the living and operative principle of faith.

“If any think they can achieve holiness apart from faith in Christ, they are as much mistaken as one who would hope to reap a harvest without casting seed into the furrows. Faith is the bulb, and holiness is the fragrant flower that comes of it when planted in the soil of a renewed heart.

“Beware of any pretense to a holiness arising out of yourselves and maintained by the energy of your own unaided will. True holiness must spring from confidence in the Savior of sinners.”

WALK CLOSER TO GOD
Faith in Christ. Without it, holiness is all labor and no fruit. But once the seed of new life in Christ has been planted in your life, barrenness gives way to growing faith (see 2 Thessalonians 1:3), growing perseverance (see 2 Thessalonians 1:4), growing glory to God (see 2 Thessalonians 1:10).

Are you trying to cultivate a godly walk without first having received the “word planted in you, which can save you” (James 1:21)?

Only the seed of life in Christ can lead to a harvest that will last for eternity.