The size and strength of any building is determined by the size and strength of its foundation. You can never build a hundred-storey building on a farm brick foundation and have a strong structure. Sooner or later the building will collapse.
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The same applies to our Christian walk. Most of us are failing to have successful Christian lives because our foundations are extremely weak. They have been built on farm bricks and also on sand, not on the solid rock of the Word. Furthermore, religion has also added more cracks to the already crumbling Christian life.
A true revelation of God’s Word is the single most important element of a victorious Christian life. The Word of God often refers to itself as a seed. There are a total of 44 verses in the New Testament where the Greek word sperma was translated “seed.” This is the same word from which we derive our English word “sperm.”
To conceive and give birth, whether it’s for a miracle you need in your body or for the vision God has given you, you must first plant God’s Word like a seed in your heart. Conception, which eventually produces the fruit, cannot take place without first planting a seed.
I constantly meet Christians who pray and believe for God’s intervention in their lives, but remain frustrated with their results. Why? It is because they have never conceived their miracles by planting the seed of God’s Word in their hearts. That’s like a woman who prays to get pregnant and then is confused when it doesn’t come to pass even though she has never had a relationship with a man. The seed has to be planted for conception to take place.
In Mark 4, the Lord taught three parables that illustrate that the Word is to the kingdom of God what a natural seed is to a harvest. The first of these parables, the story of the sower, is the key to unlocking all the others (Mark 4:13). If we don’t understand these truths, Jesus said, we won’t understand any of His other parables.
There are many life-changing truths in these parables, but one fact must be understood to get the full benefit of this teaching: The Lord used the comparison of His Word to a law of nature, which is unchangeable, not an institution of man.
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Nearly all systems that people have created can be cheated or manipulated. The legal system can be beaten, letting the guilty go free. The educational system can be beaten, passing students who haven’t really learned the material but just cram a night before an exam and pass. However, the process of seedtime and harvest can’t be changed or cheated.
If a farmer waited until he saw his neighbours reaping their crops before he sowed his seed, he would not reap a crop overnight regardless of how sincere he was or the justification for not sowing his seed at the proper time. The law of seedtime and harvest cannot be violated.
This is why our Lord chose to compare the way His Word works to a seed. The germination process of the Word of God in your life takes time and can’t be avoided.
In the second parable of Mark 4, Jesus said,
“So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he himself does not know how. For the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come” (Mark 4:26-29).
The seed is the Word of God (Mark 4:14), and the ground is our hearts (Mark 4:15). Our hearts were created by God to bring forth fruit when His Word is planted in them. Just as a seed has to remain in the ground over time to germinate, so the Word of God has to abide in us.
Jesus said in John 15:7,
“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”
What would happen if you planted a seed in your garden and then dug it up each morning to see if anything was happening? It would die and never produce fruit. You have to have faith that the seed is doing what God created it to do.
Some people put God’s Word in their hearts for a day or two, but if they don’t see fruit almost immediately, they dig up the seed through their words and actions and wonder why it didn’t work. It must be left in the ground over time. Then, there are also different stages of growth.
Mark 4:28 says:
“First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.”
Many people are impatient, wanting to bypass the growth cycle and get the full ear right now. I have actually had to tell people what they were believing God for was not going to happen, not because the vision wasn’t good, but because they were expecting a complete ear of corn immediately.
God’s kingdom operates on laws, like the laws that govern the fruit-bearing process of a seed. God will not give you the full ear of corn if you haven’t seen the first blade. That’s the way God’s kingdom works.
This is precisely the reason most people don’t see God’s best come to pass in their lives. They have lottery faith. They think that since God loves them, He will just grant their request regardless of whether they put the miracle of the seed to work or not.
God ordained that those who preach the gospel should live of the gospel (1 Corinthians 9:14). Even ministers must live from the fruit of what they sow. The fruit of God’s Word for the minister of the gospel, comes in the form of changed lives and a desire in the hearts of those who have experienced this change to help others.
These transformed congregants will respond and the church will be able to reach more and more people with the good news. Through their gifts, not only will they touch the lives of others, but also at the same time, they will plant financial seeds for their own futures.
Some of our so-called men of God have become experts in playing psychological games to hoodwink the innocent and ignorant congregants to give.
Ministers of the gospel should know that the congregation is God’s people. They are not your people. I often hear pastors complaining that so and so is “stealing my people”. This is why there is now so much abuse in the church today. People are now literally worshipping the men of God instead of worshipping the God of man because they believe he is the source of their solution, not knowing the true source.
I cannot tell you strongly enough how important it is that you know God’s Word and that you plant the seed of His Word in your heart long before you need the fruit of the harvest. It could mean the difference between prosperity and poverty, or even life and death.
A solid understanding of the importance of God’s Word in your life, will help you go beyond the “touchy-feely,” emotion-based thinking that many mistake for faith. It’s not about what you feel; it’s about what has been planted in your heart and what will come to full fruit. It’s the foundation to receiving the promises of God.
Dr Doug Mamvura is a graduate of Charis Bible School. Feedback: [email protected] or Twitter @dougmamvura
