God loves you. Such simple words with such great meaning.
1 Corinthians Ch. 13 is known as the great “Love” chapter and it describes God’s kind of love in action. If you want to see a portion of the love that God has for you, and the way he wants you to live, the love chapter is good reading. The following is from the New Living Translation and describes briefly God’s kind of love: Patience, kindness, not jealous or boastful, proud or rude. Not demanding or irritable. Does not keep a record of being wronged, doesn’t rejoice over injustice but rejoices over the truth. God’s kind of love never gives up, never loses faith, always hopes and always endures. God’s love for you will never fade.
If you are a believer God is for you (Rom 8:31). If you are not a believer yet, God wants you to come to Him (Rev 22:17).
To get a perspective on today’s column, it will help to purposely recall God’s great love for you and how you bring Him pleasure (Eph 1:5). It is the foundation that everything in scripture is built on. Without knowing and experiencing and sharing the great love that God has, everything else in scripture rings empty and has no seeming value. God’s love for you lasts forever, and He wants you to return His love to Him.
Some folks have a knowledge of God that is a head knowledge only, and they fall short of the intimate heart relationship God desires with His children.
What has God brought you through? What has He delivered you from? How has God answered your prayers?
God is a good God and he loves you with his heart, which leads us into the continuing lesson on how God (through his great love for us and because of who He is) has given believers all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3).
A born again believer has been translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son (Col 1:13), which means that they have all of the rights and responsibilities of being a child of God and a citizen of heaven right now while here on earth. God has provided believers with the way to receive what he has for us and it is all written in his word for those who diligently seek it.
Jesus said in Matt. 6 to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added; and as we take a closer look at the Parable of the Sower, the magnitude of the love that God has for you and others through the gift of his word will become more clear. Ready to dive in? Ok, here we go-There is a twofold result of sowing the word of God. This week will mostly highlight the effect the word of God has on those who hear you speak it.
You, the believer, are the sower. The seeds that are sown are words. Jesus specifically says the sower sows the word, which in Greek, is the logos or word of God. So as a believer, you speak, the word of God. That does not mean you have to be a preacher, teacher, deacon, or other officer in a church.
Speaking the word of God means applying what God says in the word (His promises, His love, His power, His blessing and His truth, etc.) to your everyday life, so that people hear the word of God through your conversation, and they see the word of God in action in your life–there is a direct connection between the Lord Jesus speaking of the Word as a seed, and waiting for fruit to develop, and that will be in next week’s column, Lord willing.
The Parable of the Sower shows that there is a one out of four chance for someone to be positively affected by the words you say. Your everyday conversation could save someone and turn them toward the love of Jesus and God the Father.
The parable says in the first passage that the Devil takes your words right out of their hearts before they have time to believe what the word says, the second says they will respond readily and quickly to the good word of God but because they have no root (of Christ’s love Eph 3:17) when they are persecuted for the word’s sake, they will be offended. The third who hears, believes for a time but gets caught up in the affairs of the world, becoming distracted and the word will not have time to bear fruit.
The word that bears fruit is the one that is received in a heart rooted in Christ’s love and that person with patience awaits the harvest.
According to this parable, the words we speak, or the seeds we plant have importance, and they have an affect on our lives and the lives of the people around us. As a citizen of heaven this parable provides the way to receive the things that pertain to life and godliness. God has given us his very Word to use in our lives to walk in the principals of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Until next time, God bless you and your loved ones.
