The Church of One Goal

John 15:7

            If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

(John 15:7 ESV)

When you read John 15:7, what thoughts come into your mind?  It sounds too good to be true, or I can ask Jesus for whatever I want and He got to give it to me.  Those two thoughts are the predominate thoughts of many and I believe they are an outcropping of our culture.  I’ve come to understand that rich and poor both covet and are greedy and that selfishness has not one thing to do with your status in society or your color of skin, it is a matter of the heart. 

When it comes to the verse above, there are three groups; the group that says it’s too good to be true; and they are the same ones who attend church but they fall into what Isaiah the prophet called formalism. The Lord says:  “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.” (Isaiah 29:13)  And if you are part of this group, you do not have because you are double minded.  It could be called the church of the “Double Minded” and the Holy Spirit spoke of it in (2 Timothy 3:1-5 ESV) “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.”
The second group or church is the “Name it and claim it” and they have a very large following.  It’s Jesus on command, and they teach a doctrine that covers the waters of wealth, health, and few, if any problems.  The Spirit spoke to us through James on this kind of teaching; “You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.  (James 4:2-3 ESV)
The third group is the church that has power, not because they do more, or give more, or have more Bible Studies, they have learned this wonderful truth: “With Jesus it is never “Do do,” but “Be, be and I will do through you.”  (Oswald Chambers)  I am so thankful that the Holy Spirit spoke to us through men like Oswald Chambers, and it brings me full circle to Jesus.  Recall what He told us in John 15:4-5, “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”   My prayer for you and for me is that we will desire to be the branch that has only one goal to abide in the vine.
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice