Fruit...takes time
Be patient!
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I talked about my favorite historical missionary on Sunday. Adoniram Judson went to Burma/Myanmar in 1812 and died 38 years later. He had a tough life, really tough. He had three wives, two of which died before him. He was imprisoned, tortured and shackled. At one point he wrote God is to me the Great Unknown. I believe in him, but I cannot find him.
He worked with the greatest passion on his translation of the Bible. And while there may have been as few as a dozen believers (and no church) when he died his efforts were not without impact. Years ago I asked a young Burmese student carrying a book in his hand. I asked him what he had, there. “Judson’s Bible” he said. My eyes got a little wet. He wasn’t a great English speaker but you could sense his enormous appreciation. Paul Borthwick was speaking to a group celebrating that work and asked a Burmese man what he knew of Judson. He began to weep but said:
We know him - we know how he loved the Burmese people, how he suffered for the gospel because of us, out of love for us. He died a pauper, but left the Bible for us. When he died, there were a few believers, but today there are over 600,000 of us, and every single one of us traces our spiritual heritage to one man: the Reverend Adoniram Judson. (adapted from Julia Cameron, editor, Christ Our Reconciler, IVP)
That was then. Today, they count their Christians in the millions. But Judson never saw it.
On Sunday we had an altar call. It was for those who wanted God to cut away - prune - everything that was not Jesus in us. Surprisingly, there was a full altar of people pleading with God to cut, prune, slash.
For some of us what needs to be cut away is instant Christianity.
Instant Christianity came in with the machine age. Men invented machines for two purposes. They wanted to get important work done more quickly and easily than they could do it by hand, and they wanted to get the work over with so they could give their time to pursuits more to their liking, such as loafing or enjoying the pleasures of the world. Instant Christianity now serves the same purposes in religion. It disposes of the past, guarantees the future and sets the Christian free to follow the more refined lusts of the flesh in all good conscience and with a minimum of restraint.
By “instant Christianity” I mean the kind found almost everywhere in gospel circles and which is born of the notion that we may discharge our total obligation to our own souls by one act of faith, or at most by two, and be relieved thereafter of all anxiety about our spiritual condition that we may discharge our total obligation to our own and we are permitted to infer from this that there is no reason to seek to be saints by character. An automatic, once-for-all quality is present here that is completely out of mode with the faith of the New Testament….
Instant Christianity is twentieth-century orthodoxy. I wonder whether the man who wrote Philippians 3:7-16 would recognize it as the faith for which he finally died. I am afraid he would not. (A.W. Tozer, That Incredible Christian)
Fruitfulness in our faith is not instant. Sometimes, the greatest fruit might never be seen by us. That’s why there is this thing called…faith.
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Stats from Barna:
Did you know that 31 percent of U.S. adults feel lonely at least some of each day?
Barna data also show that 44 percent of moms say they regularly feel anxious about important decisions and overwhelmed with responsibilities.
Similarly, our most recent study on young adults found that 37 percent constantly feel afraid to fail and pressure to be successful.
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From a year ago, but still…wow.
SILSBEE, Texas– A snake fell out of the sky and landed on a woman mowing her yard.
The bizarre incident didn’t stop there. Peggy Jones was then attacked by a hawk.
Jones was on her tractor mowing at her home in Silsbee, near Beaumont on Tuesday afternoon. She describes how suddenly a snake fell on her, wrapping around her arm.
“The snake was squeezing so hard, and I was waving my arms in the air. And then, this hawk was swooping down clawing at my arm over and over,” explains Peggy Jones. “I just kept saying, ‘Help me, Jesus, Help me, Jesus.’’
A snake fell out of the sky and landed on a woman mowing her yard. Then, a hawk came down and started attacking the woman and the snake.
The hawk eventually ripped the snake off of her arm and flew away with it. Jones thinks the hawk came down on her at least four times trying to get the snake. She says blood was everywhere. Her husband heard the commotion and came running.
“I was yelling and screaming. He didn’t know what I was saying. I thought I was bit by a snake.”
A snake fell out of the sky and landed on a woman mowing her yard. Then, a hawk came down and started attacking the woman and the snake.
Her husband took her to the emergency room where she was treated for cuts from the hawk and bruising from the snake squeezing on her arm.
There was no snake bite, but she was monitored for a bite just in case. Jones also discovered how close she really came to being bitten by the snake.
“I discovered the lens on my glasses was broken and there was snake venom on my glasses.”
Jones says people have told her she must be the unluckiest person alive to have a hawk and snake attack at the same time. She says it’s the opposite, “I feel like the luckiest person alive to have survived this!”
This wasn’t even her first encounter with a snake. Jones survived being bitten by a venomous snake a few years back.
In case you are wondering, in true Texas-tough style, Jones has already been back on the tractor. Jones had her husband walk beside her on the first ride back just to keep an eye out overhead. But she thinks she will be fine next time.