"I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." -- John 15:5 (ESV)
C.S. Lewis: -- *Mere Christianity*
"He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has--by what I call good infection. Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else."
A.W. Tozer: -- *The Pursuit of God*
"God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything else, give us all that we need. The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven't yet come to the end of themselves. We're still trying to give orders, and interfering with God's work within us."
Athanasius of Alexandria: -- *On the Incarnation*, Ch. 4
"He, indeed, assumed humanity that we might become God. He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality. For the Word was not impaired in Himself by receiving a body, that He should seek to receive a favor from it; rather He glorified it, and freely gave it life."
Thomas à Kempis: -- *The Imitation of Christ*, Book I, Ch. 18
"The more perfectly a man unites himself to God in the simplicity of his heart, the more powerfully and proficiently will he advance in spiritual things; because he receives from on high the spirit of liberty. Let your chief concern, therefore, be to withdraw from the world and from worldly vanity, and to deliver your soul into the hands of God. When the grace of God visits a man, he becomes powerful in all things; but when it departs from him, he becomes weak and is left only as a subject for punishment. Do not be cast down in this condition, but humbly commit yourself to the will of God and bear all things for the honor of Jesus Christ."
What would it look like to *abide* today -- not produce, not strive, not fix -- just stay connected to the vine?
Marcus Aurelius: -- *Meditations*, Book IV, §49
"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own. I can neither be harmed by any of them, nor lose my temper at my kinsman, nor hate him. For we were made for cooperation."
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