PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: Mark 4:26-29
What do you sense the Lord saying to you in this passage?
“The seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.” (Mark 4:27)
Jesus is describing ancient eastern farming practices, not modern western.
I imagine tractors spraying pesticides, and using technology to maximize growth.
We cannot predict how the message of God’s gracious love in Jesus will work in someone.
Nor can we control it with our theological or ecclesiastical formulas of strategies.
Nor can others stop it with persecution or legal decrees or contrary teaching.
Humble Jesus followers, like the humble farmers Jesus mentions, have no control.
They humbly live and love and serve, watching and waiting to see how the seed will grow.
The mystery of that growth is in the Spirit of God and Jesus at work behind the scenes.
The Spirit has been penetrating hearts throughout history with the love of Jesus.
We cannot control it, nor can we stop it, but we can work with it.
As we spread the love of Jesus, we can be confident that it will produce a harvest.
I am modern and western, I expect that it is up to me and my effectiveness.
And lack of confidence in my abilities keeps me from spreading – trusting – the seed.
Jesus calls me just to love the people he puts in my path; somehow it will sprout and grow!
PRAYER
Lord, help me to spread your kingdom grace wherever I go, and to trust that it will somehow sprout and grow. Help me to trust you and your message, not my own techniques and formulas.
It seems that we want to know how! Yet, “the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.” The work of the HS can seem to be mysterious – but the HS works. How many people do we interact with and maybe say a few words or do something that can help people to consider Jesus – that the HS can take and work so that even the little kernel or seed we may have planted can sprout and grow. We need to be faithful to be a part of the scattering of seed. Help me Lord Jesus to scatter wherever I go!
I am always amazed at harvest time – how the small seed has grown to produce 100 fold. God at work. Man does not make the seed to sprout and grow. The Almighty does. It is totally in His creative hands. The farmer may do some maintaining of the crop but he can not make the seed to grow. Only God can. So too is the seed we plant in other people’s lives – only God can give the increase. I just need to be an instrument of His peace, sow His word by my words and deeds and He will take care of the rest.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.