Aha! So that's how it's done

The question of "how?" is usually the most difficult. Even Mary, with her great faith, only had but one question, "How shall this be, since I am a virgin?"

How can we bear fruit as Christians? Spiritual fruit is the work of the Holy Spirit, that's how. It's no more complicated that that.

Consider Mary the mother of Jesus. After the Annunciation, if Mary had simply gone to Joseph and become pregnant---"Honey, this is what God wants!" (a la Sarah's urging Abraham to take Hagar)---it would have been Mary's work, and there would've been nothing supernatural about Jesus' birth. Of course she did no such thing.

But that seems to be the way many Christians go about the work of God. The first thing they want to know is, "What do I do?"

Francis Schaeffer described Mary's response, "May it be to me as you have said" as "active passivity", and I like this term a lot. Inasmuch as we, the Church, are the very bride of Christ, bearing His children is something only HE can do IN us. We can't do anything to give them life. But we suffer pains to give them birth and to raise them. Yet their spiritual life is God's work alone, the work of the Holy Spirit.

I wish I could ask Francis one question though: Ok. God alone can do the spiritual life-giving work. But isn't there a part of church life and work that isn't really supernatural? that doesn't even need to be supernatural? like just serving meals, singing songs, leading retreats, activities, doing good deeds? Aren't we serving God even if we are doing totally ordinary things, things that perfectly secular organizations also do? What if I'm just grabbing as many people as I can and giving them an earful of Genesis or Revelation? or leading a group of college boys to sing as a team on Sunday? What if all I'm really good for is playing the piano or singing bass in the choir? How is this not also the work of God? Does everything have to be spiritually fruitful in terms of lives changed? Do I have to live by the Spirit to do those things? Do I have to struggle to be personally holy? Do I have to deny myself and take up the cross daily if I just want to do those?

I guess I know exactly what Francis would say, too. He would say, "You don't, if that is all you want. But you wouldn't be reading True Spirituality if that was all you wanted. You'd be reading The Purpose Driven Church."

So what DO I want? That question has to be the beginning point of following Jesus. If I want the kind of power and life that HE had, church work isn't for me. I must follow Him. Indeed, He was rejected by all those church leaders and church workers in his day, and his followers persecuted by them. They were not what the Institution wanted. Do I just want to build an institution, a monument to my or someone's name? a big stone building memorializing my denomination? Heaven forbid that my desires should sink to that.

I want to "move mountains" and be "a fisher of men", to bring reformation to The Church, even if it means remaining one of a terribly lonely minority on the earth. I probably should care about crumbling institutional churches and their plights, and perhaps give up my small house-church to contribute to their survival. But Jesus didn't die to save an institution, he died to save the souls of individual believers. And I am convinced my work lies in that direction, however small and lonely my labor may be.

For I am convinced that HIS work isn't done by human hands. It is done by the Holy Spirit. And those who are filled and used by the Spirit will bear fruit, as a branch when it remains in the vine, quite naturally bears much fruit. The how isn't hard at all. It will happen as I remain. Praise God for HIS PROMISE, which alone is the grounding for our faith.