Many folks think that there is something to recommend in being middle-of-the-road in perspective and attitude, and something bad about being extreme in the same. I can understand why in many situations that may be a wise course, but it's anything but wise when it comes to Christianity. In following Christ, the milquetoast middle is nothing but a muddle. And dangerous at that!
Offered for your consideration: the parable of the sower. The extremes were clear in their result whether for good or bad. The mucky middle, on the other hand, had the look, even the promise of fruitfulness, but not the reality. Why did the middle fail? Because only by selling out, getting extreme in focus, can we see achieved what was intended to be achieved by the scattering of the gospel seed in our lives. Only a single-minded vision of submitting to what Christ in us is attempting to grow can make our lives truly fruitful in God.
And as God sees life, fruitfulness is what counts. For the seed which is the Word to get anything done in us that He came to do, there has to be singularity in the soil of our hearts. Our soil must be set apart, exclusively, for the growth and fruitfulness of that one seed. It must yield no room, nor nutrient, nor anything else that anything else would need to grow. It must not yield to anything that would retard the growth of that one seed.
And as God sees life, fruitfulness is what counts. For the seed which is the Word to get anything done in us that He came to do, there has to be singularity in the soil of our hearts. Our soil must be set apart, exclusively, for the growth and fruitfulness of that one seed. It must yield no room, nor nutrient, nor anything else that anything else would need to grow. It must not yield to anything that would retard the growth of that one seed.
If our soil is a mixed bag, chunky with rocks, or infested with other kinds of seed, our appearance may seem fine for a time, but over time, our fruitlessness will reveal the unfortunate truth about our hearts. Like any farmer planting his fields with a crop, when God plants seed in us, he expects that kind of fruit out of us. God farms by the Christ-in-Christ-out method (CICO). When rocks and weeds compete for the soil with that seed, the seed's growth is stunted and it never comes to fruit.
God wants a harvest for what he's sown into our lives. How is it that we think we can we offer him rock gardens and weed beds instead? Jesus cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season. When God looks for fruit, fruit better be there, or there's going to be a reckoning. One fig would have done it for Jesus... at least some fruit will do it for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment