Thirty Days To Greater Fruitfulness: Introduction

I’m increasingly becoming convinced that great fruitfulness only comes from being intimately connected to Jesus.

This really shouldn’t surprise me, because Jesus told me it would be this way (John 15:4).

But if you think about the world you live in, so many times we act like this is not the case.  We believe that our good ideas and biblical thoughts will cause us to be fruitful.  We believe that if we just get the biblical model right, God will make us fruitful.  And so we spend all of our time getting our model of church or ministry right….or we try to become more holy…or more likable so we can be fruitful.  When all Jesus is asking is that we stay connected.

What does being connected mean?  It means that we have a relationship with Jesus.  This relationship begins with communication and communication usually starts with listening.  But it doesn’t end there.  We listen so we can understand and interact.  And when we interact, we behave differently. We have new information.  We have a different perspective.  Maybe we even have a new agenda.

All of this is to say that Jesus desires for us to hear Him.  He wants a people that are listening.  He also wants a people who obey after they have finished listening.

I’ve been thinking tonight about Acts 13 and the ministry meeting that happened in Antioch before Paul and Barnabas became apostolic missionaries.  Notice how ministry does not mean they were helping people.  They were ministering by worshiping and prayer. They were abiding. The result was that Paul and Barnabas were released into an apostolic church planting ministry the likes of which is nearly unheard of in the Western world right now.

When was the last time your evangelism and church planting happened because Jesus gave you the idea in prayer?  When was the last time you waited for God to give you something to do, rather than just doing something that needed to be done?  When was the last time you obeyed those subtle promptings in prayer and saw what could happen? Make no mistake, fruitfulness comes from abiding and obeying.

Thus, the “Thirty Days To Greater Fruitfulness.”  I’m going to begin spending 30 minutes every day for the next thirty days waiting on Jesus and listening.  My goal is to actually hear what He wants me to do and then do it. Nothing more, nothing less.  And then, to make the exercise real and accountable, I’m going to post a quick update about it here on the blog.  I will begin here tomorrow, September 1st, and write up until September 30th.  At the end of the month, I will sum up my findings.

But I want you to join me.  You can do that one of two ways.  You can practice abiding on your own and write about it on your blog or you can take the abiding challenge and write about it on the comment section below.  But remember, it’s not just about listening prayer, but about listening prayer that turns into tangible action and fruitfulness.  I believe the results will be well worth the effort.

Photo Credit: Calendar by Adreanna Moyer Photography