Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn!  Mt. 13:30

Let me now speak freely to you at this time in English which is the language most of my fellow countrymen understand.  However, when it comes to spiritual matters very few understand.  It makes no difference if I put it in English or Danish. Or Greek for that matter.

So when it comes to being spiritually understood I´m a stranger and  very lonely and very much related to the lonely prophet Jeremiah.  And yet I gladly join him when he testifies, "Your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart!"  (Jer. 15:16)

I rejoice whenever I find among believers "any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy"  (Phil. 2:1) on the basis of Matt. 18:20  - in my home, man to man in the open, even at a special fine building called church, in short "in every place"  (1 Cor. 1:2).

However, I make this scaring discovery within the framework of our "Christian" culture and religious tradition that the organized, streamlined church set-ups with all their well functioning machinery are often but man centered "bundles" soon to be burned while the Lord of harvest will gather His people, the wheat, to Himself.

At this point very few would understand my language, which is, though, the simple way our Lord Jesus put it in Matth. 13:30.

Oh, the "bundles" are many and so are their cheerful smiles and the outward show.  "Happy to see you, hope to see you again next Sunday..." and so forth.  When I try to show interest in their relationship to Jesus Christ and how He ever came into their lives, I´m soon met with shyness or embarrassment.

Recently a so called "pastor" (part time employed) agreed on meeting with me in his office.  I liked him, and it´s always easy to talk to someone you like.  But I had to confront him with the grave issue Jesus confronted Nicodemus with, i.e. the urgency of being born again.  He listened and promised to go home and think about it.

Such unpleasant encounters have not made me isolated and negative.  Cheerfully, out in the open, outside the walls of the church, my heart goes out to my surroundings with the old, ever new gospel testimony with the spontaneity of the Spirit while the "bundles" grow on till the harvest time.

See to it, dear friend, that you belong to the "born again" wheat of His people!
April 4, 2019 - jn