Why am I unfruitful with pre-believers?
I have many pre-believing friends, that I hang out with, but no one’s asking me yet, about how they can know Jesus like I do. None of them appear to be seekers, most are turned-off, some antagonistic, some atheist, but they all know what Jesus does for me, they enjoy me, and they feel my enjoyment of them. Is there something missing? I think so.
In the parable of the sower, Jesus says that “the cares of this world” keep the believer from being fruitful, reproducing. The biggest “care of this world” for any human — Dave included, is feeling good about self based on performance. This is the human condition, rooted in puny human power, from leaning on my own understanding. Conversion — contagious faith, requires a miracle: supernatural power. Until I have been more retrained in Jesus-dependency, so there is more of Him living His life in me and through me, making more of a wow difference in my life, I don’t see why God would use me fruitfully, among my pre-believing friends.
The nicest, kindest, sweetest, most-loving thing He ever does for me, is to freshly convict me of my sin of independence/pride — leaning on my own understanding, trying to feel good about myself based on my performance. He typically needs to thwart my plans and then open my eyes to my disappointment, before I’m able to even recognize my independency. When I’m Jesus-dependent — experience Jesus living His life in me, I have a healthy indifference to the things humans care about most: performance. Whyzat? Because we humans assume that performance will fill the love-vacuum in our lives, enabling us to feel love from others and self, but it doesn’t, because it’s conditional love, on the condition of performance. We humans have an unconditional–love-vacuum, and only Jesus delivers that.
–ShepherdDave, needing prayer for fresh conviction of the sin of independence, so the pre-believers around him will be wowed by the difference Jesus makes in the life of DumbSheepDave, and want what he has (please pray now)
To receive my weekly updates, email me, or search for GospelFriendships (one word) on Facebook, and “like” the page, or subscribe to my blog: dumbsheepdave.com