Wake Up, Church: Receiving Fresh Fire for the Lost

How To Live A Fruitful Life

It’s time for us to wake up!

Recently I’ve reflected on my own life and the Holy Spirit has shown me some things I want to share today.

It all started earlier this year when I attended an online gathering of the global church. The idea behind this live global gathering hosted from locations all around the world was to gather the global church in order to inspire everyone to reach the lost - those who don’t know Christ. The purpose was to mobilize the current 2.5 billion professing Christians to reach the current 5.5 billion people who are either unreached with the gospel or have not accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior yet.

A quick Google search about evangelism statistics among Christians reveals that although most believers say they have a responsibility to share the gospel, less than 50% (even down to 25%) actually do so over a year’s time. The percentages continue to drop when it comes to regular evangelistic outreach. Some surveys indicate even more staggering statistics, showing evangelism is not a priority in many churches.

As if that wasn’t enough, some Christians do not even believe evangelism is important, stating this is reserved only for the leaders of the local church.

Yes, there are many reasons we (myself included) are hesitant to share the gospel… fear, cultural barriers, perceived lack of training, etc.

But we have no excuse.

We all have a testimony. We all have experienced God work in our lives in some sort of way. We all have the Holy Spirit living in us who can empower us to testify and glorify Jesus!

I think often we are just too busy, too distracted with our life. We have to get our priorities right. Souls are the Lord’s priority! He came to seek and save the lost!

How can we turn our apathy into lasting zeal?

The First Step

We can start with prayer.

The first step to getting our priorities right is to begin to make it a habit to pray for others to come to know Christ and pray for those who identify as Christians to come to know Him even more.

I believe as we pray for others, it prepares the way for their hearts to be more open to receive Christ and grow in Him. Prayer was a major part of Jesus’ ministry on earth, and it is always the initial phase of all the great revivals throughout church history. Prayer is the preparation for mass salvation and great moves of God!

This is about people coming into God’s Kingdom and being discipled in His ways to become everything He wants them to be. This is about relationship, not religious rules and regulations. This is about God showing others His love to inspire them to love him in return.

It’s all about love. We love Him because He first loved us. We simply are responding to His love.

 Eliminate Distractions and Apply the Word

Along with our lack of evangelism, I think many of us are distracted.  We have so much access to the Word through social media and we have a plethora of Christian content right at our fingertips, but that doesn’t equal change.

It’s not enough to just hear the Word.

 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;  for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. James 1:22-25

We deceive ourselves when we only hear the Word, but don’t apply it. We keep scrolling and listening to the Word with joy, but we don’t do anything in response.

We are so inundated with information about the Christian life and yet we see little fruit because our hearts are hard. The seed of the Word has nowhere to take root because we think it’s enough to hear the Word and say “amen” without doing anything.

Jesus gave a very important parable about this. The Parable of the Sower shows us why some people hear the Word and bring forth fruit while others don’t.

“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

He then explains the parable:

Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity. But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. (Luke 8:5-8; 11-15, emphasis mine)

So, the enemy, our pride, distractions, worldly cares and pleasures are all hinderances to bearing fruit.

Those who receive the Word with a tender and sincere heart are the ones who will apply it and continue in it even through trials.

And here’s the thing. We don’t have to be famous to be fruitful.

Famous or Fruitful?

It’s easy in today’s social media generation to think that likes and followers equals effectiveness. But we can be more effective bearing fruit in the unseen than if we had millions of followers. Again, likes and followes don’t necessarily equal impact.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to have a platform on social media, but I’m saying that’s not required to be fruitful. Fruitfulness is about our relationship with God, our love walk toward others, our passion for souls, our choice to pursue the will of God over our own…

Fruitfulness isn’t about the quantity of our life or ministry, it’s about the quality,

Will you join me in practicing fruitfulness and a renewed zeal to see others come into the Kingdom of God?

Prayer

Lord, set me on fire again! Give me Your heart for souls! Fill me afresh with the Holy Spirit to be an effective witness for You! Soften my heart so I can receive and apply Your Word to bring forth everlasting fruit. Lord, make me fruitful as I abide in You. Amen.