“How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”
Romans 10:14 (ESV)
How will they hear? Love is the press to make Him known. Faith produces the boldness to step out of ourselves into the fields that are ripe unto harvest.
“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life…”
John 4:35-36 (ESV)
We are here to live the gospel so that the words we speak carry the validity of His goodness.
“And how are they to hear
without someone preaching?”
Preaching the gospel is the work of every child of God. In the flow of everyday life, we are afforded opportunities to share His wonder. Love is the flame from which His light shines.
“So then faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God.”
Romans 10:17
If the Word of God is not communicated, faith will remain hidden from the lost, and our lives will pass through this brief span of time “barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of God.”
“For these things being in you, and abounding, they will make you not idle, not unfruitful in the full knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
2 Peter 1:8 (ESV)
Idleness and unfruitfulness reveal a lack of the attributes of faith that Peter sets before us in the scriptures preceding the above verse.
1:5 “For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,
1:6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness,
1:7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”
2 Peter 1:5-7 (ESV)
It is through the development of these qualities that we escape the idleness and barrenness of life. It is the Christ within by whom we glorify our Father. Our abilities or inabilities are swallowed up in the well of His grace overflowing into the lives around us. Faith is the impulse of our efforts to grow in Christ and to make Him known.
“I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”
2 Timothy 4:1-2
The Land of Fruitfulness
“Arise, and let us go up against them, for we have seen the land, and behold, it is very good. And will you do nothing? Do not be slow to go, to enter in and possess the land.”
Judges 18:9 (ESV)
Fruitfulness is the inheritance of the diligent. If we are slothful or unbelieving, we pass the brevity of this life unfruitful in the things of God.
Related Post:
“True assurance makes a man more humble and self-denied, but presumptuous confidence puffs up with spiritual pride and self-conceit; the one excites to the practice of every commanded duty, but the other encourages sloth and indolence.”
— Fisher’s Catechism
An assurance born of belief alone
is the root of slothful living.
The assurance of faith, tested in the fires of obedience,
produces diligence and fruitfulness.
“The hand of the diligent shall bear rule:
but the slothful shall be under tribute.”
Proverbs 12:24
Brian Troxel
Very good word