Fruit-Bearing through Abiding: Knowing that Jesus is the only foundation whom we should lay on

As we grow mature and start to lead others, we may come across situations where we ask ourselves:

• What are some of the effective ways and strategies on how I can lead others?
• How can I make people participate and serve in our local church?
• How can I be an effective leader?

John 15: 4-5

4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.5″I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

As leaders, we often tend to think of effective ways on how we can fish for people. We sometimes forget to ask, “what does God is telling me to do?” As we continue strategizing on how we can further help in advancing God’s kingdom, there will come a point where some strategies we use may/seem not to work anymore and;

• Some people whom we already have had might already slip away
• Not everyone seems to be confident/equipped even to participate in our local church ministries
• There are some who just settle to become dormant Christians who don’t bear any fruit

The answer is just simple yet, we conform to the trends and patterns of this world and make our discipleship-making process complicated.

WORD

Cultivating our relationship with God in private should be our top priority. Our active participation in our local churches and how we make disciples are just the overflow of our love for God. The end of the matter is that:

1. We cannot have the heart to serve God if we do not love God.
2. We cannot love God if we do not know God.
3. We cannot know God if we don’t know his word.
4. To know God, is to know his word.

John 1:1 – The Word Became Flesh

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

So, more than asking people of what can they contribute to the church…let us consider asking this question to them in love and mercy:

How really is your relationship with God? and we help them to be strengthened through God’s word– in a deeper, meaningful, and with the exact interpretation and understanding.

Bearing fruit in due season is only one of the manifestations of our growing relationship with God. I can testify that none of us indeed can bear good fruit apart from having a deep understanding of who our God (not only what he does). We can temporarily perform and show off our capabilities in public but in the long run, we may seem growing yet, without roots we will wither away. We can always have the heart to serve God in public–in church! but let us not also neglect our private lives, how we continuously cultivate our relationship with him and knowing what kind of leadership we should come after–the leadership of Jesus and ofcourse, how can we know the way he leads his disciples? we go back to his word (Open your Bible!).

John 15:8

This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

If we claim to be Jesus’ disciples, let us altogether thrive to honor him as we make disciples.

John 14:6

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. 

Because JESUS IS LIFE, We are supposed to be Christians who LIVE as we remain in Jesus, not Christians who continuously strive to SURVIVE every circumstances that come our way–living defeated lives to the point where we become self-centered Christians who get choke by the cares of our own world and eventually forget that there is a GREAT COMMISSION which God entrusts us, TO MAKE DISCIPLES OF ALL NATIONS.

And so, if we want more disciples who make more disciples…we teach them how to remain in the true vine–because apart from partnering with Jesus, we can do nothing. That is Jesus’ promise that as we remain in him, he also will remain in us then, we will bear MUCH fruit.