BARRENNESS
by John Hunter
H ow LONG have you known the Lord as your Saviour? During this time has your life been fruitful for Christ? As I have the privilege of counseling with people, I am amazed how many have confessed to being spiritually barren. Let me as sure you that the Lord has a real and vital answer to your need in this important area of your daily existence. The difficulty comes in that you love the Lord and want to be useful for Him. There are friends and neighbors for whom you are bur dened and yet you don’t know how to reach them. It may often be a case of fear. Has this ever been true with you? Notice the helpful exhortation of II Peter 1 :8, “For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We need to see what these things are which should be in us so that we will be able to abound. The answer to what “these things” are is to be found in verse three where we are told, “Ac cording as his divine power hath given unto us all things." We need to keep in mind that life is fruitful ness. Every living thing reproduces itself. Since this may be the very thing lacking in your life it is para doxical in the light of this verse of promise. You see there isn’t some thing you need added to your Chris tian life for you already possess it. The moment you found Christ as Saviour, His divine power gave you all things pertaining to life and god liness. It is the quality or the amount of the reality of your knowledge of Christ which enables you to be fruitful rather than barren. The more you know of the Saviour,
the more you are able to be fruitful in service. In verse four, there is the wonderful assurance, “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine na ture.” How much are you taking con fidence in the fact that you are a “partaker of the divine nature” ? Before you became a Christian, it was just you and your old human nature, full of all of its failures. When you became a Christian, by personal faith you received the Lord Jesus Christ into your heart, thereby actually being made a partaker of the divine nature. Now there was the old you as well as the wonderful new indwelling Spirit of Christ. It is the knowledge of Him, knowing
Biola's Arizona Bible College has enjoyed the opportunity of the presence of a number of students from Hawaii. Pictured above from left to right (seated) are EmallaKeohokalole, Dennis Domen, and Jo Ann Kahikina.Standing are Gwen Kuni, Mrs. Josephine Manner, Ailin Goo, and Teresa Goo. The ArizonaBible Col lege has youngpeople attending not onlyfrom many of the states, but also from several foreign countries.
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