Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down. It is thrown into the fire. You can tell each tree by its fruit. "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven. Only those who do what my Father in heaven wants will enter. "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord! Lord! Didn't we prophesy in your name? Didn't we drive out demons in your name? Didn't we do many miracles in your name? 'Then I will tell them clearly, 'I never knew you. Get away from me, you who do evil!'Matthew 7:19-23
Two days before Christmas, the husband of the sister of one of my high school classmates died of liver cancer. They had been married 24 years. They did everything together and had no children. She told me that she lost her "soul mate."
Christy was one of my sister's best friends in high school but as life goes, we live and our paths diverge and we lose touch with one another. I hadn't seen Christy since high school. We grew up in Carbondale, Il, a small university town, our homes less than 2 miles apart. Out of the blue, I get an email from Christy one night telling me that she and Colleen, my classmate, were at her home, which as it turns out is about 4 miles from my home here in Nashville. How ironic, I'd lived here for 15 years and never knew she was here, let alone, so close.
Here's the heart of the matter. I love the lord Jesus Christ! He is my savior and hope. I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus. Christy and Colleen related to me how Christy had been harangued by co-workers about her husband's soul salvation. Many of them, co-workers and she says Southern Baptists, were telling her that he was in danger of hellfire if he did not confess Jesus...
I also love Nashville, it has been described as the most churched city in the country. I understand the desire to share the Gospel, even the admonition to do so but who among you believes that this is the way to go about it? Mind you, her husband was diagnosed in October and died, as I mentioned, 2 days before Christmas.
I shared with Colleen and Christy a conversation I had with someone I met while purchasing a new set of tires. He said that he met a woman from Hawaii who said that Nashville is the most unfriendly town. He and I made a discovery or had a revelation, the woman was probably right at least as it relates to the unchurched. We tend to live in our own bubbles or circles that involve church here in middle Tennessee.
My younger children attend church school, my older children's core of friends are college aged members of the church or those who have been adopted by that impossibly huge gaggle that seems to move in unison and were they to be high enough off the ground, they would appear to NORAD as incoming.
Aside from work, there is prayer meeting, teacher's meeting, youth and children's choir rehearsal, praise team rehearsal, church basketball league, church super bowl parties, picnics, school programs, church Valentines day, Christmas parties, etc. Oh and then there's church service and we eat together after church and usually on Friday nights. I'm not complaining, to the contrary, it's a wonderful support system. Have we become so isolated, however, that we have lost touch? We are called to be a peculiar people, not a people detached from reality. I don't have answers, just questions that I will commit to prayer.
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