FRUIT-BEARING BEING THE REAL ENJOYMENT OF THE RICHES OF CHRIST
Paul said, “For woe to me if I do not preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16). Not preaching the gospel is a woe. The Lord Jesus said that if we, His branches, do not bear fruit, we will be cut off (John 15:2, 6). To be cut off is to lose the enjoyment of the full, rich supply of the vine tree. This is why many Christians are so poor in the enjoyment of the riches of Christ. They have lost the full enjoyment of the riches of Christ due to the fact that they have not borne fruit. If we do not bear fruit, we will be cut off.
Even though we do not bear fruit, we are still in the Lord, but we cannot have the real enjoyment of the rich supply of the life-juice of the vine tree. As long as we do not have the enjoyment of the rich supply of Christ’s life-juice, we have been cut off. Whether or not we have been cut off is determined by whether we have the real enjoyment of the riches of Christ. This is very serious. The main lack of many Christians is that they do not have a life of regular fruit-bearing. We must rise up to practice fruit-bearing.
AVOIDING DEBATE AND REDEEMING OUR TIME TO SAVE SINNERS FOR THE INCREASE OF THE CHURCH
Many Christians are fighting, debating, and arguing. Without exception, as long as Christians are occupied with fighting and debating, the result will be barrenness. Even though they feel they are fighting for the Lord and defending the truth, the issue of their fighting is that there is no fruit. Many times I have seen a group of Christians doing quite well until they began debating. Once they began to debate in the name of defending the truth, they began to decline in number.
Whenever debating comes in, the best way to stand against it is to “Go!” We should not care for debating but for getting people saved. We must go to get a number of people saved. Some may say that we are wrong if we care for numbers. However, the Bible cares about numbers. There is even a book of the Bible called Numbers. God told Moses and Aaron to count, to number, the people (Num. 1:2). We should number the people in the church in our locality (Acts 2:41; 4:4; 21:20). If we do this, we will be aware of our negligence in bearing fruit. Our urgent need is to go to get people saved. Instead of debating, we should prefer to save at least one person today. When we baptize someone into the Triune God, we feel glorious. The glorious way is to save sinners and count them.
If someone comes to us to debate about the truth, we should simply say that we do not have time for that. Then we may ask him if his parents and relatives have been saved. If they have not been saved, we can pray with him for them. We should not debate concerning what is right and what is wrong. We have not been appointed to be a judge, and we do not have time for debating. We must give our time to save sinners and to feed and nourish the young ones in order to help them grow.
We must go to visit people and preach the gospel to them. The Lord did not tell us to go to the “right” persons and not to go to the “wrong” ones. He simply told us to go! First, we should go to visit the homes (Luke 9:4). Then we should visit every city and place (Luke 10:1). Eventually, we must go to the entire world (Matt. 24:14; 28:19; Acts 1:8).
(The Exercise and Practice of the God-Ordained Way, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee)
