"Not I, But Christ"!

It's a good and restful thing to realize that the fruit (works) of the Spirit isn't required by Christians to produce but to "bring forth" or "bare", for it's the vine which produces, the branches bare (Jhn 15:8). It's not the works done by Christians using the Holy Spirit that produces. What lasts are the works done by the Holy Spirit using the Christian.

So, "our good works which glorify our Father which is in heaven" (Mat 5:16) are actually performed by the Spirit; first in us, then by us. In this way it's not the life of self being manifested but the life of Christ, for the Spirit's purpose is to, "teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" (Jhn 14:26). Our "abiding in Him" isn't from "walking as He walked". Our walking in Him is evidence that we abide in Him (1Jo 2:6) because "without Me ye can do nothing" (Jhn 15:5).

Stanford writes, "Our Father is going to teach us, mainly through personal failure, that the life we live is the life of our Lord Jesus alone. The Christian life is not our living a life like Christ, or our trying to be Christ-like, nor is it Christ giving us the power to live a life like His; but it is Christ Himself living His own life through us; 'no longer I, but Christ.'"

"The end of Christ's incarnation, death and resurrection was to prepare and form an holy nature and frame for us in Himself, to be communicated to us by union and fellowship with Him; and not to be able to produce in ourselves the first originals of such an holy nature by our own endeavors."

"The believer's true education is in the growth of Christ within. The Church's real ministry is not multitudinous public services, so-called, but the forming of the Lord Jesus Christ in the lives of His people; the reproduction of Christ; epistles made alive by the Holy Spirit, to be seen and read of all men." -C.A.F.