'Fruit that remains'

I had a great time preaching this morning at Christ-Life Church in Enterprise, Ala. It was a wonderful service and most importantly, four people accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Praise God!

It was a homecoming for Martha and me. The pastor of the church is Mike Shroades. Mike and I are the ones who founded Love In Action. Martha and I have many friends at the church as we served there as leaders for many years. Martha served on the praise team and was praise and worship leader for several years. I was an elder and minister of outreach.

The most exciting thing about today was seeing those four people come forward to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and especially seeing one young man make that decision. Van was a small child when I served as minister of outreach there. We had a wonderful Adopt-A-Block outreach every Saturday and his mother and grandmother were two people we reached early on. We would pick them up every Sunday morning for church, and Van was in children's church each week.

Van is now in middle school, and he, his mother and grandmother still come on the church van to worship every Sunday. They were there this morning, and it was so good seeing them. I couldn't believe how much "little" van had grown.

There were others still attending who we reached many years ago through Adopt-A-Block. Bro. Justin Swasey always helped  me pick up the people in the van back then and he still drives the van and picks the people up. You will not find a more faithful servant of God than Bro. Justin. I knew every Saturday he would be there for Adopt-A-Block and every Sunday to help with the van ministry. He has touched countless lives for the glory of God, and all it took was obedience and faithfulness to God.

Pastor Mike has taught and preached the importance of outreach and discipleship for more than a decade. He has a huge heart for the lost and a great desire to see real changes in people's lives through the power of God.

Seeing those we reached years ago still coming to church really blessed me today. Jesus tells us in John 15:16, " I appointed you that you should go out and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain ..." (HCSB). Seeing fruit that we produced years ago remaining today was awesome. I praise God for those precious souls and for my great brothers Mike and Justin. They are faithful and a great blessing. If all Christians had their hearts and desire to win the lost, we would have already reached all of the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ by now. 

Thank you Christ-Life Church for a great day, and praise God for the souls that were saved today and for the fruit that remains.