More About The Connection Between Faith And The Word
I couldn’t believe it when I heard Pastor Creflo Dollar’s TV broadcast message this morning, because it was total confirmation of my post yesterday, which was actually posted very early this morning, because yesterday was such a hectic day! I love it when the Lord works through the power of the Holy Spirit to confirm messages like that, and I have no doubt it means that this is a very important message for someone in particular, so please listen to How to Apply Your Faith (Part 2), which is an excellent message about the importance of the word as we stand in faith for the restoration of our marriages.
One of the most awesome and encouraging verses that leaves no doubt that the word of God is life giving seed to us as Christians is 1 Peter 1:23, which says For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. And what a great blessing it is when we truly understand that verse, because it is through the living and enduring word of God that we are made imperishable through the faith and confidence it gives us in our Lord and Savior! And Jesus taught us even more about how VITALLY important the word is to us as Christians in The Parable of the Sower, which He described as the secret of the kingdom of God, obviously making this parable something we should pay a LOT of attention to and do our very best to understand. So here it is from Mark 4:1-20, which says:
1 Again Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat and sat in it out on the lake, while all the people were along the shore at the water’s edge.
2 He taught them many things by parables, and in his teaching said:
3 “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed.
4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.
5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow.
6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.
7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so that they did not bear grain.
8 Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, multiplying thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times.”
9 Then Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
10 When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables.
11 He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables
12 so that, ” ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'”
13 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?
14 The farmer sows the word.
15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.
16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy.
17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.
18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word;
19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.
20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown.”
So when we read and study The Parable of the Sower, it’s important to seriously take our own inventory and determine the kind of soil the word of God is being sown into in our lives, because we all fall into one category or the other and should be able to easily recognize ourselves somewhere in this parable. And if we’re anything less than the good ground that produces many times what was sown, we need to focus a lot more on our relationship with the Lord and how His word is being manifested in our lives.