Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Reflecting God - Embrace Holy Living - WordAction - The Nazarene Publishing House in Kansas City, Missouri, United States - The Global Church of the Nazarene "Worries, Wealth and Wants" by Curtiss A. Hartley for Wednesday, 21 June 2017 

Reflecting God - Embrace Holy Living - WordAction - The Nazarene Publishing House in Kansas City, Missouri, United States - The Global Church of the Nazarene "Worries, Wealth and Wants" by Curtiss A. Hartley for Wednesday, 21 June 2017 

Link to Reflecting God – Embrace Holy Living

"Worries, Wealth and Wants" by Curtiss A. Hartley
Mark 4:10 When Yeshua was alone, the people around him with the Twelve asked him about the parables. 11 He answered them, “To you the secret of the Kingdom of God has been given; but to those outside, everything is in parables, 12 so that
they may be always looking but never seeing;
always listening but never understanding.
Otherwise, they might turn and be forgiven!”[Mark 4:12 Isaiah 6:9–10]
13 Then Yeshua said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How will you be able to understand any parable? 14 The sower sows the message. 15 Those alongside the path where the message is sown are people who no sooner hear it than the Adversary comes and takes away the message sown in them. 16 Likewise, those receiving seed on rocky patches are people who hear the message and joyfully accept it at once; 17 but they have no root in themselves. So they hold out for a while, but as soon as some trouble or persecution arises on account of the message, they immediately fall away. 18 Others are those sown among thorns — they hear the message; 19 but the worries of the world, the deceitful glamor of wealth and all the other kinds of desires push in and choke the message; so that it produces nothing. 20 But those sown on rich soil hear the message, accept it and bear fruit — thirty, sixty or a hundredfold.”
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Jesus often used agricultural images to describe the Kingdom of God to those listening to Him. In the parable of the Sower (Mark 4), Jesus told how the Word of God could be sown into the lives of people and bear fruit.
In Jesus’ time, farmers scattered seed from a pouch slung over their shoulder, and as He tells it, eventually some seed took deep root and produced a fruitful crop. Some seed, however, fell on the path where it never took root. Other seed fell among rocks where it could never grow strong roots. Still other seeds seemed full of hope and promise, taking root and springing up, but nearby thorns choked out the plants, so they never thrived or produced fruit.
Some people are like that, Jesus said. They hear the God’s Word and it appears there is hope and promise, as the Word takes root. Sadly, the thorns of worry, wealth, or wants crowd out the plant, and soon there is no life. A plant that bears no fruit is worthless, destined for destruction. May we avoid the thorns of worry, wealth, and want, so that our lives bear fruit for Jesus.
"Come Ye Thankful People, Come" by Henry Alford
1. Come, ye thankful people, come,
raise the song of harvest home;
all is safely gathered in,
ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide
for our wants to be supplied;
come to God's own temple, come,
raise the song of harvest home.

2. All the world is God's own field,
fruit as praise to God we yield;
wheat and tares together sown
are to joy or sorrow grown;
first the blade and then the ear,
then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we
wholesome grain and pure may be.

3. For the Lord our God shall come,
and shall take the harvest home;
from the field shall in that day
all offenses purge away,
giving angels charge at last
in the fire the tares to cast;
but the fruitful ears to store
in the garner evermore.

4. Even so, Lord, quickly come,
bring thy final harvest home;
gather thou thy people in,
free from sorrow, free from sin,
there, forever purified,
in thy presence to abide;
come, with all thine angels, come,
raise the glorious harvest home.

Thought for Today:
[Isaiah 61:11].
Please pray:
That many people in Ethiopia will come to know Yeshua the Messiah and receive the fullness of the Ruach HaKodesh.

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