Wheresoever we go in obedience to His will, we carry the
consciousness of His friendship.

'That ye may bring forth fruit'--He goes back for a moment to the
sweet emblem with which this chapter begins, and recurs to the
imagery of the vine and the fruit. 'Keeping His commandments' does
not explain the whole process by which we do the things that are
pleasing in His sight. We must also take this other metaphor of the
bearing of fruit. Neither an effortless, instinctive bringing forth
from the renewed nature and the Christlike disposition, nor a painful
and strenuous effort at obedience to His law, describe the whole
realities of Christian service. There must be the effort, for men do
not grow Christlike in character as the vine grows its grapes; but
there must also be, regulated and disciplined by the effort, the
inward life, for no mere outward obedience and tinkering at duties
and commandments will produce the fruit that Christ desires and
rejoices to have. First comes unity of life with Him; and then
effort. Take care of modern teachings that do not recognise these two
as both essential to the complete ideal of Christian service--the
spontaneous fruit-bearing, and the strenuous effort after obedience.

'That your fruit should remain'; nothing corrupts faster than fruit.
There is only one kind of fruit that is permanent, incorruptible. The
only life's activity that outlasts life and the world is the activity
of the men who obey Christ.

The other half of the issues of this friendship is the satisfying of
our desires, 'That whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name He
may give it you.' We have already had substantially the same promise
in previous parts of this discourse, and therefore I may deal with it