An abandoned life . . .

In my quiet time today, I ended with this devotional regarding John 15:4

"Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me."

"It was not our imitating Jesus. It was not trying to reproduce the life of Jesus; but it was our being an empty surrendered temple for Jesus to dwell in, to repeat His own life in us.

Our part is to keep the channels open and unobstructed. I saw how He would love sinners through us, and draw us out after them; how He would minister to them through us, and how He would pray through us. After that it was no longer the cry of my heart, "Lord help me to do this or that;" "Lord, help me to speak;" and "How can I do that?" But as I met each emergency, it was, "Lord, do this through me;" or, "Lord, speak through me now," and as I went to prayer I would abandon myself to Him to give the petition.

I found, too, that Christ's presence in me often spoke to others with a word from me. Oh! The possibilities of such an abandoned life to God! Some of us have sweet happy flashes of this life, and how life a bit of heaven it is! Some of us see it, yet do not break away from old habits of though about our being a wonderful Christian, and that God is going to help us do a great work. And so God can only work through us in a limited way. Yet His thought for us is that His life in us may be an abiding one."

- Jennie Fowler Fuller in a Missionary to India.