Jesus Brings Forth Good Fruit Kathryn Kuhlman

I have to make a confession to you today. I have a very decided dislike for negative people. A dislike for negative preaching and negative writing. I just dislike anything that's negative. And it's just like that. Now, I've confessed it. And you probably have known it a long time ago because that's one thing that I've never been accused of, and that is of being a negative person. Oh, I'll tell you, no matter how black the clouds are, I'm always dead sure that the sun's going to break through. It's going to shine. That's one of the things that have brought me through to where I am today. Oh, sure, they can predict a hurricane, but... Mentally, I'll think, well, maybe it won't be, you know. Maybe the subtle breakthrough or maybe it'll go in another direction. And when it comes to preachers who are always negative in their preaching. Now, you analyze your own pastor for a minute. Let me ask you, every time he gets up, it's always, don't do this and don't do that. It's a negative thing. You know, you can't do this and you can't do that. Until before long, he drives more people away from the church than he can get into the sanctuary. It's like that. Now, it's not sufficient for a speaker or an author to discuss the disease. But to satisfy my soul and to satisfy my mind, he must give me a cure. I don't want somebody to tell me my bad point unless he can tell me how to overcome it. What can I do? You say, Catherine Kuhlman, you're a very selfish person. All right. I... will admit my selfishness, but I want that same person to tell me how I can overcome my selfishness. Somebody may tell me that I have a temper. All right, I will admit to the temper, but I want that same person, don't tell me my sin unless you can tell me how to overcome it. Anybody doesn't take a brain to go around condemning everybody. It doesn't take... an intellectual person to go around and find fault with people. A wife can find fault with her husband. But the thing to do, my friend, don't tell him his faults until you can give him a remedy and tell him how to overcome his faults. Sometimes I think everybody in the whole world can tell us what's wrong with the world, what's wrong with the government, what's wrong with the president, what's wrong with the nation, what's wrong with Congress. Everybody's talking about it, but nobody seems to have the answer. It's just kind of like that. And it's so easy to point out what's wrong, but I want to know what's right. Sometimes that's a little more difficult than one would suppose. You and I are made in our innermost being for positive achievement, to be outgoing, to master our circumstances, to create. If we are not positively creating and producing, then the machinery of life will get out of gear. For we are geared to creation. The personality breaks down under negative attitudes. For we're not made for it. You were not made to be negative. I was not made to be a negative person. Know that. Understand that right now. If you are a negative person, you were not made for it. You were made to be outgoing, to be creative. Now for just a few minutes, I'm going to get right down to the positive of the thing. To faith. The thing above all else I want you to see is that you cannot generate faith. You cannot work it up. You cannot manufacture it. It's imparted and infused by God himself. You cannot sit in your homes and struggle to have faith. and struggle to be positive and affirm that something is. Nor can you turn your hope and desire into faith by your own power. The only place you can get it is from the Lord. For the Word clearly and distinctly states that faith is one of two things. It's either a gift of God or it's the fruit of the Spirit. Always remember that. You read the Word of God. Faith is either a gift of God or it's a fruit of the Spirit. We cannot generate it of ourselves. We're told in Paul's epistle to the Corinthians, Now abideth faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love. While love might be the greatest, It certainly is not the first. It must be preceded by faith. Look out of your window at that tree. Just stop whatever you're doing. I'll give you a moment. Just get up and look out of the window. Look at that tree. Oh, it's lovely. Maybe you hadn't noticed its beauty before sometimes, you know. That's the way life is. You have to be reminded of something. That tree's been there a long time. And you knew it was there, but you haven't really looked at it. Maybe if I were to have told you you had a tree out there, maybe you hadn't even noticed it. Oh, I tell you, people are funny. They really are. We have to be reminded of some things. So right now, look at that tree out of your window. It's beautiful. It's lovely. Only God can make a tree. We think we're so smart we've been to the moon. Oh, we've come so far in science. And yet, just consider one thing. Only God can make a tree. There is beauty in its twisted branches. There's loveliness in its trembling leaves. Every leaf is a little world unto itself. You grumble and complain when the leaves begin to fall, and you have to rake the leaves all you know. That person who is negative, all that he can see about that tree is that when fall comes, he's going to have to rake the leaves and carry them away or burn them. He has seen no beauty in that tree all summer. And yet every leaf of that tree is a little world unto itself, with its tiny veins carrying the life that God supplies, which gives us all it possesses in native realm. Yet there is something back of the tree. Beneath the surface of the ground, there's a great system of roots hidden away. You never behold them. Yet without them, the tree would die. It would have no life at all. None. The roots are ugly. The hardy comparison to the beautiful greenery above the ground. Yet, the greenery is there partly because of those ugly roots. Now let us call the top of the tree love. You can see it. Oh, sure. You can contact it. You can enjoy its fragrance. You behold its beauty. It's there because of something which is back of it. Something hidden away that causes it. And that something is the roots. Now you expect me to say that those roots are roots of faith. No, indeed not. Faith is the light that blows into the roots. It is that mystical quality that only... God can produce and give. There are roots that you could plant which will never, never grow. You yourself, your inner nature, are those roots. Know that. You, your inner nature, are those roots. Your senses, your avenues of approach to the expressions of life itself are buried below the surface where people cannot see them. All the world beholds is what you produce and not you yourself. What Jesus meant when he said, By their fruits ye shall know them. Ye shall know that person. The fruit produced is an index to what the tree really is. The only way that you can see Catherine Kuhlman, the real Catherine Kuhlman, is by the fruits that I produce. You cannot look on the inside of me. only way that you can really, really look on the inside of Kathryn Kuhlman, and if you really want to know what Kathryn Kuhlman is really like, you'll know me by the fruits that I produce. You know? Because a bad tree will not bear Good fruit. Somebody says, now, what is so -and -so really like? You think there's something hidden. You think there's something, you know, locked behind the door. Watch a person long enough. I don't care who that person is. And you'll see the full meaning of what Jesus said when he said, by their fruits, ye shall know them. Oh, you can cover up for a while. Sure. Yeah, if you're a real operator, if you really are cunning enough, you can cover up for a while. Uh -huh. Maybe during that time of the engagement, you know. That's the reason I'm old -fashioned enough to believe in long engagements. Because sooner or later, you'll expose yourself. Because what is really on the inside will come out. That's what Jesus meant. By their fruit, ye shall know them. The fruit produced is an index to what the tree really is. Now let me repeat something. The roots of the tree are not faith. The roots do not produce the life, but the life produces the roots. It is the life that is faith. It is that wonderful, that glorious quality, which is a gift of the divine heart, which sustains us. This life of faith will be manifested to the world by the fruit we bear, Arms of love outstretched by the things of grace and beauty which through God are manifested day by day on the tree of our lives. I wish I had the vocabulary. I wish I had the ability to make it so simple that you'll understand what I really am trying to say. How foolish it would be for that tree to struggle in an attempt to create the life which flows into it. Leave that struggle. All it needs to do is to function in obedience to the laws divine. As the life is there, it simply manifests that life in the fruit that it bears and the beauty with which... It endows the earth. So it is with faith. Love may be the greatest thing in the world, but faith must of necessity be the first. For without faith, it is absolutely impossible to please God. But you tell me that you have faith. I ask you, where did you get it? I pick up a rosy apple from the tree. I hear it testify from the core. of this little apple heart. It tells me it has rosy cheeks. It whispers in my ear that it's very, very good to the taste. It invites me to taste its flavor. It testifies that it has so many noble and beautiful qualities. Then I ask it where it got them all. From the branch? The shelter of the trees? The rain, the sun, oh sure, all of these are true. But I knew that way down in the hidden system, which you cannot see, which I cannot see, the roots were receiving something from God that no tree on the face of the earth has ever seen. ever been able to produce of itself. Know that. If I have any fruit whatsoever, if I have any goodness whatsoever, all of my goodness, all of my righteousness must come from the root within, and God himself is the source of that goodness. It's within. You want to be a righteous person? You want to be a good person? You don't start from without. It has got to be within. It's so simple, and yet sometimes it's the hardest thing to make people understand what we're trying to say. And yet something so thrilling. Never think that it was your faith that received Christ as your Savior. Never say that any act of yours was the basis of your redemption. It's Jesus Christ who imparts the water of which he spoke to the woman at the well. It's Jesus who puts his arms of love beneath the burden on your back and lifts it from your tired, weary body. It's Jesus who pours life and faith and hope into that broken heart. oil of heaven's joy. It's Jesus who smooths the wrinkles of care with the gentle touch of a mother's hand. It's Jesus who brings you out of the darkest night into the light of his own glorious and wonderful day. If I have any goodness whatsoever, it is not on myself. It's Jesus within me. It's Jesus. If you see any... root, good fruit from this life of mine. It's because inside of me, I love Jesus. And Jesus has put that goodness there. He is the root of my life. It's so simple. Remember, it must come from him. He must impart it, and he will. He will. I promise you. He will. You and I are made in our innermost being for positive achievement. For outgoing love. And he is the one who put it there. But we have to want it. Want it more than anything else in the world. God bless you.