Dear Friend and prayer partner,
Greetings! I trust that you are well and that the rich favor of God rests upon you and your loved ones. I am in St. Vincent now. I arrived Monday and spoke at a church last night. Again I was led of the Lord to zero in on reaching persons and discipling them for the kingdom and glory of God. This time I spoke on the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19. Jesus was looking for Zacchaeus but Zacchaeus was also looking for Jesus! Isn't that what we are faced with? A world in which Christ is looking for people and people are longing and looking for him but often don't even know it is Jesus that they are looking for. And then, many who are supposed to be God's people stand by and criticize those of us who reach out to those "sinners" and "worthless people" like Zacchaeus as the crowd did that day when Jesus went to Zacchaeus' house. They said, "he's gone to eat with a sinner!" Who should we go to?
I have been asserting in my teachings and do so here now that the church in the West has become "a comfortable place for the converted and an ecclesiastical ghetto!" We build up barriers to keep people out and become an enclave for the "ingroup"! We simply don't like certain people to come to our churches. We don't like them and we don't want them!!! We don't want them to rub shoulders with us and our children! The modern western church is busy working to keep people out of God's kingdom that Christ loves and died for!!!
As I reflect further on my two and a half months of ministry in these islands of the Eastern Caribbean, I have come to realize certain things or see them in sharper focus! One of them is that our churches are filled with either disobedient people or people who are not saved at all!!! Here me on this!
In John 15:1, 2 Jesus said this, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful."
And then in John 15:8 he says this, "this is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."
So, what is the "fruit" mentioned here? Is it not, at least in part if not entirely, the fruit of making disciples? Isn't fruit expected to reproduce? If so, are most professing Christians reproducing? And if they are not, as the evidence suggests, are they not disobedient or may not even be Christian at all?
I would love to hear what you think but even more to hear what YOU are doing to fulfill Christ's Great Commission in Matthew 28:18-20? If you are not doing so, you are either disobedient or you may not be a disciple of Christ at all!! Jesus' simple but profound words in John 15:2 is that those who don't bear fruit the Father cuts off from the vine! And those who do bear fruit He prunes. Either way, there's pain in the offering!
I will have more to share in the days ahead. Enough to reflect on for now! Thanks and God bless you!
In His grip,
Courtney
