“No, I tell you! But unless you repent you will all perish as well!” Then Jesus told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the worker who tended the vineyard, ‘For three years now, I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and each time I inspect it I find none. Cut it down! Why should it continue to deplete the soil?’ But the worker answered him, ‘Sir, leave it alone this year too, until I dig around it and put fertilizer on it. Then if it bears fruit next year, very well, but if not, you can cut it down…….’” “Exert every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.”Luke 13:5-9, 24 NET https://bible.com/bible/107/luk.13.5-24.NET

Do you hear the news of the revivals on college campuses around America? It is indicative of the will of God for the people of God to cease their passivity and worldly pursuits of pleasure, power, and possessions to fully engage Jesus and His assignment to us to make disciples in the world. Jesus calls us to repentance from dead works, that which we do which will yield no eternal value, and faithless living, that which ignores following Jesus and placing ourselves wholly at His disposal. Jesus, our God, warns us that the fruitless tree is the worthless tree that will be cut down and burned upon review. God expects fruitfulness from us just as much as faithfulness from us. To His glory, we bear much fruit, and apart from Him, our intimacy with Him; we can do nothing. God does not do what He has assigned men made in His image and is fully capable of doing. We are simply not exerting ourselves, making the maximum effort to accomplish the work God commissioned. That work is the building of His kingdom upon the earth as it is in heaven. It is winning people to Jesus and teaching them to obey everything He has commanded. If we cannot identify people in our lives that we are seeing come to Jesus or moving toward Jesus by our concerted effort, then, in that case, we are fruitless trees given more time to produce by the grace of God before He returns to cut us down if we do not make more effort. The world needs Jesus, and we are His ambassadors. Let us love God enough to love people by keeping them from dying in their sins and spending eternity in torment. Let us repent and then get to work with all of our strength.