THE STORY OF JESUS: Matthew 13:18-23
“Good soil… produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
The point of planting seed is producing a crop.
Jesus often explains that the crop God desires is goodness, love, mercy, justice.
Also known as the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23)
This is what believing in Jesus ought to produce in us, what God is looking for.
This is what Jesus defeated Satan for, and restored God’s Spirit for.
In Jesus we have “everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” (2 Peter 1:3)
The lack of a crop is not because of deficiency in the seed.
Many Christians fill their minds with ‘knowledge’, but knowledge itself is not enough.
Satan knows what we know (and more), and yet produces no crop.
To understand the message is to act on it, to put it into practice.
I do not understand ‘love your neighbor’ until I start loving them actively.
Satan finds ways to distract, discourage and defeat us, to keep us from understanding.
So many people Sunday after Sunday hear the message, but do they understand it?
That is, is it making a fruit difference, is the seed growing into changed living?
We have “everything we need” to produce a crop – in the seed, in Jesus, in the Spirit.
All this has been freely offered by grace, ours for the embracing and experiencing.
But are our hearts good soil, are we embracing Jesus and His message actively?
With longing?
What do you sense the Lord saying to you?
PRAYER
Lord, I don’t know everything, and what I do know I know imperfectly. But I know enough to put it into practice. Help me to stop just thinking, and start living the good news!
God sowed abundantly.
God will reap harvest.
What fruit was produced by what was sown?
We all hear he Word of the Lord. What makes me unresponsive to that Word? What keeps me away from producing the fruit as required? Good seed produces good fruit. The message is clear. There will be a harvest. May my heart be receptive to the Word and produce good fruit – abundant fruit. May I always be receptive to His Word, continuing to learn to walk in His Way.
When we walk with the Lord
in the light of his word,
what a glory he sheds on our way!
While we do his good will,
he abides with us still,
and with all who will trust and obey.
Refrain:
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.