As long as he was trying to do it in his own power and out of his own resources, he failed miserably. When his own talents for love and patience were willing to die, the life that is in Christ Jesus sprang to life. Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).The secret of a fruitful Christian life is not in doing but in dying— dying to all self-effort so that the indwelling life of Christ can be released.