Christianity Today Weekly features a great article this week by Tim Stafford, on the recent explosive growth of the church in India. It touched me deeply to read in more detail of the Spirit's gracious, powerful moving, especially among the Dalits, India's untouchables. Praise God for His loving compassion for the poor. Praise God for the creative, loving approaches being used to share God's Good News in action and in Word. Praise God - how encouraging - that today there are as many as 70 million Christ followers in India. May their numbers continue to increase rapidly.
Just after reading this article, I read Jesus' sobering words "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."Matthew 7:13, 14
Many of us pray regularly for family members who have not yet found the small gate, the narrow road. We especially grieve for those who seem to have found but not walked through the gate. We also pray for countries where the huge majority of the population, in some as high as 99% or more, give no indication of knowing that Jesus is the Way. We pray for those few "gate finders" living among them - that they will represent our Lord with wisdom and power.
We continue to pray that millions in those countries and in our countries, will find the gate and follow along with us on the narrow, difficult but so wonderful and joyful road. Even in India, where there may now be 70 millions believers (twice the total population of Canada), we know there are still over 900 million who do not believe.
And sometimes we wonder why? Why do so few believe? In fact some critics of Christianity will argue: if Jesus is the Only Way to God, if He is God's ultimate revelation, why don't a majority of people believe and follow Him? We know that God loves the whole world enough that He sent His Unique Son to rescue us.
Jesus came to "seek and to save those who are lost." Yet Jesus in the verses I've quoted above, and again in the parable of the Sower and the Seed predicts that only a minority will truly believe. As well, on different occasions he discourages individuals and crowds from following Him, wanting them to recognize that the Way is narrow. He does not want casual followers, He wants disciples.
We can hope and pray for large numbers of people to come to Christ. We know that at different times in history and in our lifetimes among different people groups and in different countries there have been huge turnings to Christ. Yet it seems that as in Jesus day, so it will normally be, only a few will find the gate, enter and walk on the narrow road, following the Crucified One.
May our lives and our words be truly helpful and point the way for those who are sincerely seeking. And let's keep praying for those who have not yet found the narrow gate.
No comments:
Post a Comment