Planting Seeds

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God designed you to grow. And, when you’re growing like you should, you’ll be producing seeds that can be planted in other people that will affect the way they see and interact with and think about the world around them. The question is: Are these Gospel seeds, or are they seeds for something less savory. As a community, God designed us to be a place where people grow in Christ. Read on to see what this means for us, what it can mean for you, and what we should to about it.

Planting Seeds

I don’t have any corn growing in my front yard.  You can drive by my house any day of the week, any time of the day, and you won’t ever see any there.  It’s the weirdest thing.  It just isn’t there.  I like corn.  I love eating it.  I love it when we buy a whole bunch at the store, strip it off the cob, freeze it, and pull it out months later to enjoy.  Lisa is a wizard with those goodie freezer bags.  But there just isn’t any in my front yard.  There aren’t any green beans either.  That’s really too bad too, because it’s the one vegetable we’ve managed to be able to get all three boys to eat without much in the way of complaint.  I can’t tell you how convenient it would be to simply go out the front door and pick what we need rather than having to go to the store all the time for them.  Alas, though, the yard is bereft of beans.  And greens.  Now, I’m not much of one for greens myself, but Lisa likes cabbage.  You won’t find the first leaf of it in my front yard. 

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Morning Musing: Acts 17:25

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“nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”
– ‭‭Acts‬ ‭17:25‬‬ (ESV – Read the chapter) 

Have you ever done someone else a favor? I suspect so. That’s not an uncommon thing to do. It’s a basic cultural courtesy in most human cultures. Someone needs something, we are able to do it for them without cost, and so we do. And, while we don’t often cash in on this right away, there’s usually an unspoken understanding that once this favor has been given, a favor is now deserved. In most cases, this whole system keeps society running smoothly. But, what about the times when it doesn’t work? Paul touches on one here. 

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Digging in Deeper: Psalm 95:7b-9

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“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.” (ESV – Read the chapter)

Have you seen enough of God and His activity that rejecting Him is no longer a valid option for your life? That’s kind of an interesting question, isn’t it? We don’t often think about it like that. We usually think more in these terms: Have you seen enough of God to make receiving Him a reasonable thing to do? The thing is, if we look closely at the Scriptures, that first question is the one with which we are really confronted. 

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Morning Musing: 1 John 1:6

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“If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”‬‬ (ESV – Read the chapter) 

Sometimes you come across something in the Scriptures that, if you think about it very hard, can make you break out in a cold sweat. It doesn’t happen so often as to make you read with armor on, but you’ve still got to watch out for it. This is one of those places. 

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Digging in Deeper: Matthew 6:19

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“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,”
– ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6:19‬‬ (ESV – Read the chapter)

The other day I was making small talk with an acquaintance. Given that we were only a couple of days past Christmas, we asked each other the obligatory, “How was your Christmas?” question. Both of us assured the other that it had been good and that, more importantly, the kids had had fun. We agreed that if the kids were happy, that was a key ingredient to a fun Christmas morning. Then he said something to which I could only respond politely because I didn’t agree. 

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