Spiritual Infertility

            As I have written before, I have never met an infertile couple, who did not express great pain and disappointment over the reality of their lives. They always yearned to have children.

            When it comes to Christians, I rarely see this attitude regarding spiritual infertility. I am not saying that when we are spiritually unfruitful, we should be beating our chests, dressing in sackcloth, and pouring ashes over our heads.

            Yet, scripture shows us a God who yearns for us to have spiritual children, much more than we do. He also goes to great lengths to see that it happens. We can observe this in two stark ways.

            First, he desired spiritual children so much he was willing to allow his Son to carry a cross. Indeed, he engineered the events of the cross. The cross was no accident.

            Second, God desires spiritual children so much that he is willing to allow his church to carry a cross. That is what happened in the book of Acts. Jesus told his disciples to take the gospel to Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. 

           Unfortunately, the Jerusalem church did not do this. The Jerusalem church was content to remain infertile and not allow the Gentiles to be born into the Kingdom of God, so God allowed the Jerusalem church to carry the cross. Specifically, that was seen in the persecution she experienced, which drove the Gospel ultimately to the ends of the earth. Gentiles at last entered into the Kingdom, in droves.

            How badly does God want to have spiritual babies? Enough to allow his church today (whom he loves) to carry a cross—even if it means experiencing persecution.

            I doubt we will ever want to have spiritual babies that much, but we all probably need to ratchet up our desire a few notches. The cross tells us God badly wants to have more spiritual babies; do we?