Silly Sower
I kinda had a bit of a revalation during the end of my last post. It hit me how much God really loves us. Sometimes that happens, I'll be thinking about God, or Jesus or something like that and all of a sudden.....SLAM..... i love you
I had started to say how pissed Jesus got with the pharisees and calling them a brood of vipers. Jesus goes on responding to their question of a sign and I'm not gonna get too much into that because I'm excited about Matthew 13. But at the end of 12 he says something great that I had to point out. Jesus says "...Here are my mother and my brothers. 50For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." That sense of family means a lot to me. My sense of family has changed drastically in the past year, but more about that later.
Matthew 13
3Then he told them many things in parables, saying: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9He who has ears, let him hear."
I hear this and I think, silly sower, why don't you just sow your seed in good soil?
(say that 10 times fast, its fun....)
Jesus goes on to explain that when you hear the message about the kingdom and dont understand it, the devil comes around and snatches what was sowen into your heart. Thats the seed on the path part. Nest he says a man will recieve, with great joy, the message; but will face hard times and fall away easily because he has no foundation for his beliefs....thats seeds on rocks. Then he talks about a man who recieves the message and starts to grow with it, but the worries of life, and how to juggle the mixed thoughts between trusting God through faith, or trusting money through greed. Finally he says good soil makes good crops, not just good....crops that will yield 30,60 and 100 fold.
I have been all four of these. This looks like a faith staircase to me. When you come to know God, It is easy for you to misunderstand, or not understand the things hes trying to tell you. That gives room for the enemy to come in and destort and destroy. The more you plug away at it and don't give up (keep sowin that seed) the easier it will be to grow with God. It is still easy to not produce fruit. We can be glad that we are finally understanding the message of the kingdom and get all excited and volunteer at the church, and go to all these churchy meetings. But when your best friend dies in a car crash, Its easy to turn to the oh-so-familiar worldly outlets like alcohol, drugs, sex, violence, instead of turning to God for comfort. Even then, we start to grow more, we are in better soil than the path and better soil than the rocks, but we transplant ourselves into the weeds. We want to live two lives, one for church and one for work. Let me tell you about my weeds. This was where I was at with God maybe like 2 weeks ago. I felt like I was starting to produce fruit, had a good foundation, good christian friends, passion to learn, but I was scared to death to tell anyone i didn't know about Jesus. By staying in the weeds, all we do is hide and suffocate. To love the world is to be against Jesus. I had to make several decisions about my life. Hard decisions, decisions that might mean people will think less of me, or not like me, and maybe hate me. But its not about me. Its about Jesus. Its not about Perfection, its about Progress. When It becomes about Jesus and less about me, the way people view me matters less to me. I know and am solid in knowing that Jesus loves me. I know, and am solid in knowing that as long as it stays about Jesus he will use me to produce good fruit 30,60,and maybe, just maybe 100 fold.
I had started to say how pissed Jesus got with the pharisees and calling them a brood of vipers. Jesus goes on responding to their question of a sign and I'm not gonna get too much into that because I'm excited about Matthew 13. But at the end of 12 he says something great that I had to point out. Jesus says "...Here are my mother and my brothers. 50For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." That sense of family means a lot to me. My sense of family has changed drastically in the past year, but more about that later.
Matthew 13
3Then he told them many things in parables, saying: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9He who has ears, let him hear."
I hear this and I think, silly sower, why don't you just sow your seed in good soil?
(say that 10 times fast, its fun....)
Jesus goes on to explain that when you hear the message about the kingdom and dont understand it, the devil comes around and snatches what was sowen into your heart. Thats the seed on the path part. Nest he says a man will recieve, with great joy, the message; but will face hard times and fall away easily because he has no foundation for his beliefs....thats seeds on rocks. Then he talks about a man who recieves the message and starts to grow with it, but the worries of life, and how to juggle the mixed thoughts between trusting God through faith, or trusting money through greed. Finally he says good soil makes good crops, not just good....crops that will yield 30,60 and 100 fold.
I have been all four of these. This looks like a faith staircase to me. When you come to know God, It is easy for you to misunderstand, or not understand the things hes trying to tell you. That gives room for the enemy to come in and destort and destroy. The more you plug away at it and don't give up (keep sowin that seed) the easier it will be to grow with God. It is still easy to not produce fruit. We can be glad that we are finally understanding the message of the kingdom and get all excited and volunteer at the church, and go to all these churchy meetings. But when your best friend dies in a car crash, Its easy to turn to the oh-so-familiar worldly outlets like alcohol, drugs, sex, violence, instead of turning to God for comfort. Even then, we start to grow more, we are in better soil than the path and better soil than the rocks, but we transplant ourselves into the weeds. We want to live two lives, one for church and one for work. Let me tell you about my weeds. This was where I was at with God maybe like 2 weeks ago. I felt like I was starting to produce fruit, had a good foundation, good christian friends, passion to learn, but I was scared to death to tell anyone i didn't know about Jesus. By staying in the weeds, all we do is hide and suffocate. To love the world is to be against Jesus. I had to make several decisions about my life. Hard decisions, decisions that might mean people will think less of me, or not like me, and maybe hate me. But its not about me. Its about Jesus. Its not about Perfection, its about Progress. When It becomes about Jesus and less about me, the way people view me matters less to me. I know and am solid in knowing that Jesus loves me. I know, and am solid in knowing that as long as it stays about Jesus he will use me to produce good fruit 30,60,and maybe, just maybe 100 fold.
posted by Its not about Perfection, Its about Progress at 9:38 AM
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