Fruitful Fields
The featured song this month is called Fruitful Fields .
This is the time of year when plants bear fruit. And time is scarce, because of all the garden work. We have added chickens to our bees, so there is a new learning curve! More about that in a future post.
But not today, because time is also short, because the days are already getting a lot shorter here in the Upper Connceticut River Valley of New Hampshire.
However, there are things that make time far more urgent than the scarcity and the shortness mentioned above. As we notice the chill in the morning and the garden plants beginning to die, we think of those who do not know Jesus. World events are moving toward His second coming, when He will return to judge the living and the dead. When will that be?
We don't know. But what matters even more than knowing He will come again is knowing that your life on earth will come to an end, and when it does, you will return to God who made you. In a sense, your time to repent and believe the gospel of Jesus Christ will be up when you die. And that could be any time, even in the very next moment!
The preacher in Ecclesiastes wrote these powerful words of wiseom, and let us all take it to heart:
6Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed,
Or the golden bowl is broken,
Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain,
Or the wheel broken at the well.
7Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,
And the spirit will return to God who gave it. (Ecclesiastes 12:7-7)
I rarely know who has read these messages, but I pray that as you consider this sobering truth, you will turn to God with all your heart and repent of your sins. I pray that you will remember your Creator!
If you are already a Christian, I pray you do not forget those who are not. I pray that you remember your friends and family who are outside of Christ in your fervent prayers and in timely and appropriate action.
I will say it again, if you are walking with Jesus, I pray you will go and spend some serious time tending your own fruitful fields. For the sake of Christ and those He came to save, be willing to plow hard ground and go to war against your besetting sins.
Be willing to plow hard ground with your loved ones, to love them enough to tell them of the Savior. Do not shrink from telling them the indescribably great news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Spend much time in prayer and in the Bible. Pray for grace to mortify your sin, and for courage to share the truth of the gospel with others.
Here is the gospel in a nutshell:
15 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. (1 Timothy 1:16
By the way, we are all the chief of sinners! Every day, in so many ways, we fall short of the Holy God to whom we will someday give account.
We must admit we cannot save ourselves, we must confess that we are sinners, and we must believe that Jesus Christ came into the world to die in the place of all the sinners who would ever believe in Him!
Send us, Father, to the Fruitful Fields!