True godliness [for the child of God], must not be the mere bark, but the heart, the sap, the essence of a man’s being— it must run right through and through so that he cannot live without it. That religion which you do not carry with you every day, and which is not the dearest object for which you live is not worth picking up from a dunghill! We must be ready to die for Christ or we shall have no joy in the fact that Christ died for us. Do you know that the promise of the Old Covenant was prosperity, but the promise of the New Covenant is adversity? Listen to this text—“Every branch in Me that bears not fruit He takes away and every branch that bears fruit”—what? “He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit”! If you bring forth fruit you will have to endure affliction! You may say, “that is a terrible prospect!” However, this affliction works out such comfortable fruit that the Christian, who is the subject of it, has learned to rejoice in tribulations—because as his tribulations abound so his consolation abounds by Christ Jesus!
