I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. 1 Corinthians 3:6, 7.

The work of building up the kingdom of Christ will go forward, though to all appearances it moves slowly, and means are so limited that impossibilities seem to testify against advance….

The disciples were bidden to feed the hungry multitude before eating themselves. After the wants of all had been supplied, the command was given, “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.” Twelve baskets full were gathered up, and then Christ and His disciples ate of the precious, heaven-supplied food….

In the place of shifting your responsibility upon someone whom you think more richly endowed than you are, work according to your ability, even though you have but one talent….

Christ received from the Father; He imparted to the disciples; and they imparted to the multitude. All who are united to Christ will be doers of His word, receiving the bread of life … and imparting it to others….

Our Savior placed in the hands of His disciples the food for the people, and as they emptied their hands, they were again filled with the food, which multiplied in Christ’s hands as fast as it was called for…. This should be a great encouragement to the disciples of Christ today. Christ is the great center, the source of all strength….

A Paul may plant, and an Apollos water, but God only giveth the increase. This is so that no one may boast. The most intelligent, the most spiritually-minded, can bestow only as they receive. Of themselves they can manufacture nothing for the needs of the soul. We can impart only that which we receive from the hands of Christ, and we can receive only as we impart to others. As we continue imparting, we continue to receive, and the more we impart, the more we shall receive. Thus we may be constantly believing, trusting, receiving, and imparting….

In the hand of Christ the small supply of food remained undiminished until the famished multitude were satisfied…. If we go to the Source of all strength with our hands of faith outstretched to receive, we shall be sustained in our work, even under the most forbidding circumstances, and shall be enabled to give to others the Bread of Life.—Signs of the Times, August 19, 1897.

From From the Heart

You give them something to eat. Matthew 14:16.

The disciples thought they had withdrawn where they would not be discovered, but as soon as the multitude missed the divine Teacher, they inquired, “Where is he?” Some among them had noticed the direction in which Christ and His disciples had gone, and soon an immense crowd was looking for Christ. Fresh additions were made to this number until the congregation was composed of no less than five thousand men, besides women and children.

From the hillside Jesus looked upon the moving multitude, and His great heart of love and compassion was stirred with sympathy. Interrupted as He was and robbed of His rest, He was not impatient…. Leaving His mountain retreat, He found a convenient place where He could minister to their spiritual destitution….

The people listened to the words of mercy flowing so freely from the lips of the Son of God. They heard the gracious words, so simple and so plain that they were as the balm of Gilead to their souls. The healing of His divine hand brought gladness and life to the dying and ease and health to those suffering with disease. The day seemed to them like heaven upon earth, and they were utterly unconscious of how long it was since they had eaten anything.

“And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said, This is a desert place, and now the time is far passed: send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat. He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat.” Surprised and astonished, they say unto Him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat? He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? go and see. And when they knew, they say, Five, and two fishes. And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass…. And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. And they did all eat, and were filled. And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes.”

He who taught the people the way to secure peace and happiness was just as thoughtful of their temporal necessities as of their spiritual need.—Signs of the Times, August 12, 1897.

From From the Heart

Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw. John 4:15.

The woman was so astonished at His words that she rested her pitcher on the well, and, forgetting the thirst of the stranger and His request to give Him to drink, forgetting her errand to the well, she was lost in her earnest desire to hear every word….

Jesus now abruptly changed the subject of conversation and bade the woman call her husband. She frankly replied, “I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.”

As the past of her life was spread out before her, the listener trembled. Conviction of sin was awakened. She said, “Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.” And then, in order to change the conversation to some other subject, she endeavored to lead Christ into a controversy upon their religious differences….

The conviction of the Spirit of God had come to the heart of the Samaritan woman…. No teaching that she had hitherto heard had aroused her moral nature and awakened her to a sense of her higher need.

Christ reads beneath the surface, and He revealed to the woman of Samaria her soul thirst, which the water from the well of Sychar could never satisfy….

The natural thirst of the woman of Samaria had led her to a thirst of soul for the water of life….

Forgetting the errand that had brought her to the well, the woman left her water pot and went into the city, saying to all whom she met, “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” …

Earth’s cisterns will often be emptied, its pools become dry; but in Christ there is a living spring from which we may continually draw…. There is no danger of exhausting the supply; for Christ is the inexhaustible well-spring of truth. He has been the fountain of living water ever since the fall of Adam. He says, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” And “whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”—Signs of the Times, April 22, 1897.

From From the Heart

A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” John 4:7.

As the world’s Redeemer, the Son of God took upon Him our human nature…. Hungry and thirsty, He tarried to rest at Jacob’s well, near the city of Sychar, while His disciples went to buy food in the city….

As Jesus sat by the well side, the cool, refreshing water, so near and yet so inaccessible to Him, only increased His thirst. He had neither rope nor bucket with which to draw, and He waited until someone should come to the well. He might have performed a miracle and thus have obtained a draft from the well, had He wished, but this was not God’s plan….

“There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.” The woman answered, “How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.” Christ was near to the woman of Samaria, and she knew Him not. She was thirsting for the truth, yet knew not that He, the Truth, was beside her and was able to enlighten her. And today there are thirsting souls sitting close by the living fountain. But they are looking far away from the well that contains the refreshing water, and, though told that the water is close by, they will not believe.

Jesus answered the woman, saying, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?” Yes, Jesus could have answered, the One who is speaking to you is the only begotten Son of God; I am greater than your father Jacob, for before Abraham was, I am. But He made answer, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” …

Christ was just as truly the water of life to Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, and all who received His instruction then as He is at the present time to those who ask of Him the refreshing draft.—Signs of the Times, April 22, 1897.

From From the Heart

Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him. John 9:3.

“And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” …

In the question the disciples asked Jesus, they showed that they thought all disease and suffering the result of sin. This is indeed truth, but Jesus showed that it was an error to suppose that everyone who was a great sufferer was also a great sinner. While He corrected their errors, He spat upon the ground and made clay of the spittle, and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay and said unto him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent),” and he went his way, and came seeing. Jesus answered the question the disciples put to Him in a practical way, and in the way He usually answered questions put to Him from curiosity. The disciples were not called upon to discuss the question of who had sinned or not sinned but to understand the power of God, His mercy and compassion, in giving sight to the blind. It was that all might be convinced that there was no healing virtue in the clay or in the pool wherein he was sent to wash, but that virtue was in Christ….

The friends and neighbors of the young man who had been healed looked upon him with doubt, for when his eyes were opened, his countenance had been changed and brightened, and made him appear like another man. From one to another the question was passed, “Is it he?” And some said, “It is like him,” but he who had received the great blessing settled the controversy by saying, “I am he.” He then told them of Jesus and by what means Jesus had healed him, and they inquired, “Where is he? He said, I know not. They brought to the Pharisees him that aforetime was blind. And it was the sabbath day when Jesus made the clay, and opened his eyes…. Therefore said some of the Pharisees, This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the sabbath day. Others said, How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles? And there was a division among them.” …

They knew not that it was He who had made the Sabbath, who knew all its obligations, who had healed the man.—Signs of the Times, October 23, 1893.

From From the Heart