Is God getting the glory he deserves from our lives? How much fruit are we bearing?
“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples...You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.” (John 15:8, 16)
There are two kinds of fruit implied here—the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and the fruitfulness of producing more disciples. Christ last command before returning to the Father was “go and make disciples of all nations . . . and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). As his disciples, we want to fulfill that mission and expand his kingdom bearing “much fruit” here in our area.
“For too long, too many North American Christians have thought that
sitting passively in the back row to get fed is what’s requiredof them, or
that the main goal of finding a church is to attend one you 'like'”
-Carey Nieuwhof
The goal of any Christian should never be to find a church you like and sit in the back row.
The goal should be to fully engage the mission. It’s engaged Christians who advance the mission. Engaged people are passionate people. They know what the mission is. They serve in it. They live it out. They’re passionate enough about it to invite their friends.
Over the long-term, a church, you can accomplish more with 300 engaged Christians than with 3,000 disengaged attenders. The disengaged group will dwindle. The 300 engaged Christians will advance the mission and never stay the same.
Only God can bring about kingdom growth, but he uses people who are engaged to do it. Just believing we should, and having a desire along with good intentions to become more engaged produces nothing. If our intentions and desires don’t match our conduct, there is a mismatch, and the message It takes a willful decision to be engaged in the mission of the church.