Readings for today: Numbers 4-5, Mark 4
How do you respond to the Word of God? How do you feel when you hear it preached? When you read it during your devotional time? When you listen to it on your way to work? Do you find your heart open to its message? Is it comforting? Challenging? Life-changing? Do you find yourself wanting more of the Word or is it a struggle to read? Are you intentional about applying its lessons? Aligning your lifestyle with its laws? Submitting yourself to its authority? Do you trust its promises? Do you believe its truth? Do you hold fast to what it says no matter how much opposition may arise? As you think back over the course of your life, do you seek growth? Spiritual maturity? Are you bearing fruit?
These are important questions to reflect on and Jesus offers a great diagnostic tool for such reflection in the parable of the sower. Jesus is the sower. He is at work even now in the world spreading the seed of the Word of God. He works through preachers and pastors as well as ordinary men and women to spread the good news of the gospel to the ends of the earth. As the seed is sown throughout the world, people respond in different ways. Some hearts are hard. Like a paved road. the seed cannot penetrate. It is rejected. It never takes root. And the enemy comes and steals it away. Some hearts are shallow. There is an initial response. Driven by the emotions of the moment. By all outward appearances, it looks like the seed has taken root. There is joy. There is excitement. But such feelings gradually wane. The seed cannot put down roots. The heart drifts away towards other things. Some hearts are divided. They receive the seed. Roots are put down. But the soil is mixed. There are weeds and thorns and thistles. As the seed springs up so do these other things and eventually the growth is choked off. The fruit never ripens. Their spiritual growth is stunted. Finally, there is the open heart. The humble heart. The heart that is good soil. Ready to nurture and water and grow the seed. These hearts hold fast to the Word and what it teaches. They seek to align their lives with the Word and over time, they bear much fruit.
Now it’s time for an honest assessment. We’ve been reading for a two months. Where do you find yourself? What have you learned thus far? What lessons have you sought to apply to your life? Put another way, where do you find yourself in the parable? Is your heart hard? Unwilling to receive what Jesus says? Unwilling to submit to His ways? Unwilling to surrender to His Lordship? Is your heart shallow? You hear the Word but don’t do it. Your devotion to Jesus only goes skin deep. In fact, reading the Bible. Worshipping Jesus. Spending time in prayer. These things are boring and often feel like a waste of time. Is your heart divided? Are there other activities that take priority over spending time with God? Do you find yourself rejecting God’s Word along the way in favor of other desires? Other needs? Other wants? Have you fallen prey to the cares and worries and riches and pleasures of this world? Do you presume on the grace of God and assume God will overlook your sin? Is your heart true? Do you prioritize your time in God’s Word? Do you intentionally seek to submit your life to His way? Do you allow God’s Word to confront as well as comfort? Disrupt as well as affirm? When push comes to shove and God reveals something in your life that needs to go, do you obey? When doubt creeps in - as it always does - do you make the conscious decision to hold fast to the promises of God?
Friends, the seed is being sown. The Word is being proclaimed. God is making Himself known. How will we respond?
Readings for tomorrow: Numbers 6-7, Mark 5:1-20