(Fifth part)
Memory verse: Matthew 13:8,23 “ But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty…But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty ”
Good seed requires good soil to produce a good harvest. Likewise, God’s word requires good hearts to produce fruit in your lives. That’s what the parable of a sower is all about. There’s need of great heart-cultivation to make one ready to receive GOD’S WORD. Jesus said to the Pharisees that they make God’s word ineffective by their traditions, in the parable of the sower he noted things that hinder peoples’ hearts to receive God’s word fruitfully: deceitfulness of riches, anxieties, cares of live, persecutions for the sake of the gospel and the word, etc. Somewhere else Jesus teaches that the things that defiles a man are the things that are in their hearts (Matt 15:18-19). But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. Its amazing, Jesus teaches that what come out the heart of a man DEFILES THE WHOLE MAN, this open our eyes to understand the great work that we need to do in cooperation with God the Holy Spirit to transform, to clean, to purify , to refine our hearts. We need to discover the awesome work God want to accomplish in us as Paul said that God is faithful to finish the work he started in us. Phil 1:6
Who we’re in God is more important to God than what God does through us. The work God does in our lives is more vital to God than what he does through us. Character and charisma are both important to God, but character is more. Because its character that will make us see GOD IN THIS LIFE AND IN THE WORLD TO COME. Matt 5:8 says, Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God. Our relationship with God depends on our character more than what we do. Much time should be spent in God’s presence, in Prayer, in fasting, in God’s word, in fellowship with each other seeking transformation of our hearts. Our hunger and thirst for God should be cultivated greatly because its only the hungry God will feed with his living bread and the thirsty he’s calling to come to him for living waters. We need more heart work, even more than headwork.
Tomorrow we will learn about " Living in the mysteries of God’s Kingdom "
