"'Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed
fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured it…. And other
seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing
and yielding thirty-fold and sixty-fold and a hundredfold.' And he said,
'He who has ears to hear, let him hear.'" (Mark4:3-9 ESV)
Recently the slugs and snails have been after my dahlias and lupins. I
have been dismayed at how much damage can be done in such a short time
over the mid-summer nights. Brutal has been the decimation. Total the
annihilation of some plants right down to the soil, just gone, eaten for
breakfast.
The aggressive nature of the onslaught by the slugs
and snails brought the parable of The Sower into sharp relief again.
The Sower is Jesus' oh-so-familiar key-note speech. If we are
fortunate, it is told to us from an early age, as a part of our
Christian Sunday School heritage. Everyone knows the parable, right? We
hear it, but see it as a fine Sunday morning or bedtime story-line to
agree with, but perhaps no longer in need to dig deep, to examine
ourselves, to hold ourselves up in its light.
To Jesus' hearers
and disciples it was received with initial bewilderment but its truth is
also for today's listeners of the Word and disciples. It is an
explanation of a fallen world's confrontational nature against the
Kingdom of God. It is His revelation of a world order he came to bring
victory over, through His death and resurrection.
Time has done
nothing to lessen any of its cutting-edge truth and people are still in
need of hearing the Good News of salvation from us.
Personal
experience shows me distraction, dissipation, obstruction, persecution
and antagonism will always find Christians in the world. Somewhere it
lurks waiting in us, or in the world, for an opportunity to separate us
from, or limit, the Love of God which bears Kingdom fruit.
Those
poor dahlias and lupins had been grown in the protection of a greenhouse
but as soon as they were put out into the garden there was total
onslaught. Not wanting to use killers I was up early and out late at
night finding and removing the perpetrators to limit the damage done and
enable the flowers to bloom. By Jesus' Grace, we too are able to blossom
and bear fruit in keeping with the Kingdom of God.
Prayer: Lord,
Your Love is amazing, Your Faithfulness never-ending. Please show us the
birds, weeds and thorns in our lives so that we may recognize and resist
them and in turn hand them over to You to be ministered to, that we may
produce fruit in keeping with the Kingdom, in Jesus' name. Amen.
Rod Marshall
The Illustrator: This daily newsletter is dedicated to encouraging
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