Prayer
Before you read, I invite you to pray this prayer based on Psalm 119:137-140.
LORD, You always do what is right, and your decisions are fair.
The commands You have given us are right.
and we can trust them completely.
The wicked ignore Your commands,
but I love Your Word.
Time and again it has been proven trustworthy and true.
Speak to me through Your Word today, I pray. Amen.
Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your awareness to the voice of God, coming to you through His Word.
Reading
9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.
The parable of the sower and the seed is iconic. In simple terms, it teaches us that there are different ways we humans might receive Christ’s teaching. Three of these are futile in the end, and only one is helpful.
One might listen with one’s ears, but never truly receive His teaching into one’s mind due to distraction, pride, prejudice or simple carelessness (v.4 & 19).
One might listen eagerly, and get the point with great excitement, but then realise very quickly that the cost of discipleship is too steep, and abandon any real application of His teaching (v.5-6 & 20-21).
One might hear and understand His teaching, but find that its demands conflict with one’s quest for a comfortable life of wealth and leisure, and so abandon it (v.7 & 22).
Ultimately, only those who listen to Christ’s teaching with faith in Him, wrestle to grasp it, and believe it (and Him) enough to apply it to their lives, can be said to have truly “understood” it in the Biblical sense of the word (v.8 & 23).
This word, “understand” is “suniemi” in the original Greek. It means “to put facts together and arrive at a final understanding of the truth and its applications”. And that is exactly what Christ commands us to do in relation to His teaching. He calls us to truly hear His word and to work to understand it enough to apply it and live by it. Otherwise it will make no impact on our lives. We will remain unfruitful, unproductive and unaffected by His Kingdom. But if we do so, we will bear much fruit, “yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown“.
May we be a people who truly hear the Word of the Lord, truly listen, truly work to understand and apply that Word, and ultimately a people who truly obey the Word. Then we will be truly pleasing to the Lord and truly fruitful for His Kingdom.
Contemplation
Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn these declarations over in your mind. Keep them in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ,
- I will listen to the Word of the Lord.
- I wil wrestle to understand it and to apply it.
- I will trust in Him to empower me to obey it.
Lord Jesus, I am hungry for Your Word. Speak to me throughout this day and give me grace to joyfully obey. Amen.
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