Little fruit or plenty, there can be neither without him, because without him nothing can be done.
“If you dwell in me, said Jesus,
and my words dwell in you,
you will ask for whatever you desire and it will be yours.”
Can a person dwelling in Christ desire anything out of harmony with Christ? The very fact that people dwell in their Saviour must mean that they have no desire that is opposed to their salvation.
And yet we do indeed desire one thing insofar as we are in Christ, and another insofar as we are still in this world. Because of our sojourn here below, a thought sometimes steals into our ignorant minds to ask for something which cannot be good for us.
But this may not be, if we are dwelling in Christ.
He does what we ask only if it is for our good.
To dwell in him, therefore, is to have his words
dwelling in us; whatever we desire,
we shall then ask for, and it will be given us.
St Augustine
(Homily on the Gospel of John 80, 1; 81, 1.3.4: CCL 36, 527.530-3)