From Addition to Multiplication
God has a plan for seeing as many people as possible come to know Christ as their own Lord and Savior. It is a simple plan, and every believer is part of the plan. We can see God's plan being carried out at the beginning of the book of Acts. In Acts 2:41 there were 3,000 souls added to the church, and others were being added daily according to verse 47. Then, in Acts 4:4 we are told that there were about 5,000 men believers. However, in Acts 6 we see the church go from adding disciples to multiplying disciples. (Acts 6:7) That was and is God's plan for reaching the world for Christ.
In order to keep up with the population growth and even grow more quickly than the population of the world believers have to multiply. It will never be enough to add new believers, because people multiply. My family is an example of that. Chris and I have 3 children, but we have 6 grandchildren, so far. One day, Lord willing, we will have great-grandchildren, maybe 12 or more. That means the two of us will have become 12, but not by having 10 children. It is being done through multiplication. Human multiplication has been very efficient, so that now there are nearly 8 billion people in the world. Christians must multiply, too, to catch up with the population of the world.
The good thing is that it takes less time for believers to multiply. We can lead a person to Christ and disciple that person in a year or less, so that he or she can then have spiritual children themselves and start the process over again. If every believer multiplied himself or herself every year it would take 7 years or less to see the gospel spread through the entire world. Of course, not everyone would accept Christ, but everyone would hear the gospel and have the opportunity to trust Him. That is God's plan, so we must be faithful to multiply ourselves, that the world may come to know Christ.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Acts 7-9.
In order to keep up with the population growth and even grow more quickly than the population of the world believers have to multiply. It will never be enough to add new believers, because people multiply. My family is an example of that. Chris and I have 3 children, but we have 6 grandchildren, so far. One day, Lord willing, we will have great-grandchildren, maybe 12 or more. That means the two of us will have become 12, but not by having 10 children. It is being done through multiplication. Human multiplication has been very efficient, so that now there are nearly 8 billion people in the world. Christians must multiply, too, to catch up with the population of the world.
The good thing is that it takes less time for believers to multiply. We can lead a person to Christ and disciple that person in a year or less, so that he or she can then have spiritual children themselves and start the process over again. If every believer multiplied himself or herself every year it would take 7 years or less to see the gospel spread through the entire world. Of course, not everyone would accept Christ, but everyone would hear the gospel and have the opportunity to trust Him. That is God's plan, so we must be faithful to multiply ourselves, that the world may come to know Christ.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Acts 7-9.