"Not I, but Christ" (Galatians 2:20).
It is not a matter of what fruit, but of which tree!
"What salvation has done is not merely forgiving me my sins; forgiveness, cleansing, justifying, applies to my responsibility and guilty condition in the first Adam; but salvation applies to my standing in the Last Adam. It is a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).
"What would you do if you wanted to make something of a crab tree? Not nurture, and prune, and dig about it. That God has done with His fig tree (Israel). If you know anything about it, you will cut it down and graft it. Until you find out that the old man is utterly bad, and that there is no mending it, you will not give it up. If you cultivate the old crab tree you will have fair blossoms but only bigger and more sour crab apples." -J.N.D.
"Before we were saved, worldly objects and affairs usurped the place of Christ; but after being saved, spiritual objects and affairs now tend to occupy His place. Earlier God took from us the things of this world; presently He is taking away our spiritual thing or things. He removes our personal patience, love, power, gentleness, humility.
"Indeed, He removes all, that we may not live by these good things but live by a Person instead. We are patient not because we have received a power to be so, but because we have got a patient Person. So it is with humility and the rest: not a power but a Person." The fruit of the Spirit is the life of Christ.
"For to me to live is Christ" (Philippians 1:27).
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Miles J. Stanford (1914 - 1999)
Was a Christian author best known for his classic collection on spirituality, The Green Letters, published in 1964. Theologically, Stanford called himself Pauline and Dispensationalism. He drew upon the written ministries of William Newell, Lewis Sperry Chafer, and a number of the original Plymouth Brethren, in particular John Nelson Darby.Because of Stanford's focus upon the doctrinal content of the Pauline Epistles, some evangelicals have erroneously identified him with hyper-dispensationalism. To address this, Stanford published numerous papers during the 1980s and 1990s clarifying the distinctive tenets of "Pauline Dispensationalism." A collection of fourteen papers were collected into his 1993 book of the same name. Stanford typically signed his letters with his hallmark salutation, "Resting in Him."