Thursday Reading: Matthew 13:18-23
Key Verse: Matthew 13:23
23 But that sown on the good ground is this: he who hears the Word and understands; who also bears fruit and produces one truly a hundredfold; and one sixty; and one thirty.
Devotion:
Rather than reading the whole of the parable of the sower, I have just read Christ’s explanation of it to the disciples. Christ was preaching to a lot of people at this time and He knew that not everyone would hear and understand His Word. If He knew that everyone would understand and accept His word as the truth then He would have been able to explain things a whole lot better. Maybe there were some in the crowd that would turn Him in if He preached the ‘wrong things’; whatever the reason, ours is not to doubt the fact but to accept it.
Christ used simple explanations that people could relate to so that they would understand the difference between people that accept the truth and use it and others that reject the truth. We often get carried away with trying to get people to see that God is our God of love and that He is the one behind our lives. If truth be told, it is hard for anyone outside of our beliefs to accept the fact that Christ is who He is. It seems a most extraordinary thing that we place our faith in the unseen and that we get so much comfort from that unseen. Maybe by starting with peoples beliefs is a good starting point after all.
We all know that seeds will produce crops. We all know that they grow out in the fields. We see farmers doing marvellous things by growing so much that we can eat as well. But three things need to be remembered as well. First that the farmer has to sow the seeds in the right place to start with. Second that He has to nurture the field afterwards to ensure good growth. And the third thing is that the ground has to accept the seeds... If the ground rejects the seeds then no matter how hard we try to encourage those crops to grow, they will simply be rejected. Testing the ‘ground’ with a parable may help you to find the right people to witness to...
Points to Ponder:
Do you find it hard work witnessing?
Are you sowing in the right places?
