Much as we'd like to examine the four soils in Jesus' parable in Matthew 13 for our receptivity and readiness to the gospel, it really isn't about us. Much as we'd like to bring our rational marketing research and preparation to how and where we share our faith with the soil of other souls, it really isn't us who do the sowing. This parable is about God. In this story Jesus speaks of a sower (God) who throws seeds out with reckless abandon - carelessly on a hardened path, wastefully on rocky ground, and haphazardly on thorny ground. This extravagantly generous God of ours also sows seeds on good soil, where the harvest is beyond imagining - and beyond any rational reckoning of a reasonably good harvest! What's with this God of ours?
God is equally extravagant and mysterious in Isaiah 55: 1: "Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." In today's economy we know this doesn't make much sense.
But our sovereign God, whose harvest is hundredfold, reminds us in Isaiah 55: 10-11: "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there until they have watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and succeed in the thing for which I sent it."
If we are able to trust that God is busy bringing in the kingdom, how do we engage in sharing our faith and our resources alongside Jesus?
We pay attention to opportunities without the need to scrutinize or anticipate every detail. We remember that God's kingdom is everywhere about us. We are as extravagant in sharing as God is in sowing.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Shelley
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