SOWING GOD'S WORD

Part 13:

Recently, my daughter and her family visited our home. One afternoon she requested

that I go pick up some pizza for dinner. As I was leaving the house, I stopped to have

a conversation with another member of the family. That is when I heard the words, "Stay

focused, Daddy! Go get the pizza!"

How often we lose our focus when we are doing God's work! We have good intentions,

we begin the journey … and then we are distracted! We need to stay focused on the

important things! Jesus was on a mission. His work was to do the will of God and to

finish it.

Each one of us needs this same desire and goal. We must desire to finish the work God

has gifted us to do before we leave this world. We are on a mission: a mission to help

fulfill the Great Commission, as Jesus

commanded in Matthew 28: "Therefore go

and make disciples of all nations, baptizing

them in the name of the Father and of the Son

and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28: 19–20). The

only way that we will accomplish this great task is to stay focused on God's Word and let

it influence every situation we encounter.

Soaking our hearts in the Word of God is really only the first step to making it personally

operative in our lives. We need to soak in the words of Scripture so that we will havegreater and greater desire to have God's Word influence all areas of our lives, including

our converterlating.

After spending a lot of time in the Word, and spending time reflecting on it, I came upon

a verse that has become a favorite of mine: "My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I

recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer" (Psalm 45:1,

emphasis added). This verse helped me to develop the concept of sowing to the Spirit.

The Word of God is living and powerful, and it works in the life of the believer who

receives it. Our tongue is the pen of a skillful writer because we are reciting the Word of

God back to the one who inspired the writing in the first place. The activation process of

God's Word actually controlling our behavior is what I refer to as sowing to the Spirit.

You may have heard the saying, "You reap what you sow." This idiom means that there

is an effect for everything a person does

or says, and that the effort a person puts

into something will eventually be

rewarded appropriately in this life or the

next. The general idea behind "you reap

what you sow" is that actions have

consequences. The effects of a person's

behaviors are not necessarily apparent

right away, such as when a farmer has to

wait a while for a crop to mature;

nevertheless, they show up eventually.

We sow God's Word out of our hearts

and into the world. As Converterlators our goal is that all of those words would reap

eternal benefits!

Sowing to the Spirit of God begins with praising God, rejoicing in his marvelous

provision of salvation with expressions of gratitude. God loves and responds to these

expressions of faith: "Let the godly sing for joy to the Lord; it is fitting for the pure to

praise him. Praise the Lord with melodies on the lyre; make music for him on the ten-

stringed harp. Sing a new song of praise to him; play skillfully on the harp, and sing with

joy" (Psalm 33:1–3, NLT). "The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies

me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!" (Psalm 50:23,

ESV). What promises to claim for our personal lives! As we recite these verses we are

focused on God's power and purposes.praise him. Praise the Lord with melodies on the lyre; make music for him on the ten-

stringed harp. Sing a new song of praise to him; play skillfully on the harp, and sing with

joy" (Psalm 33:1–3, NLT). "The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies

me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!" (Psalm 50:23,

ESV). What promises to claim for our personal lives! As we recite these verses we are

focused on God's power and purposes

We often think of meditation as quiet reflection, and it is! But our sowing is directly

related to our meditation, because the sowing comes out of the meditation! We see the

principle of meditating on God's Word as we read of the birth of Jesus in Luke: "But

Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). Can you

imagine Mary's reaction when the shepherds told her about the supernatural events they

experienced when Jesus was born? We learn an important

lesson from Mary in this passage. She treasured up and

pondered these things in her heart. When we treasure things in

our heart, they are special and we think of them often. When

we ponder on things that we have been exposed to, we reflect upon their importance and

impact. These thoughts help us develop convictions that impact our behavior. Mary's life

was forever changed because of this.

The supernatural exposure to God's Word from the angels that the shepherds experienced

so impacted them that they were moved to go to Bethlehem to see this miracle for

themselves. Their lives were changed and Mary's faith was deepened.

The heart absorbs whatever it is soaking in, so a cursory reading of the Bible is not

enough. We must spend time with God's Word. We must treasure its content and ponder

what it is saying to us. Scripture is living and powerful; it impacts how we think, feel, and

act. Again, our sowing comes from our meditation. The two are intrinsically linked. Jesus

said, "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34, NKJV,

emphasis added).I find my own heart is stirred when I recite and pray my Spiritual M & M verses to the

King. When we do this we know we are praying in accordance with the will of God.

After all, it is his Word we are sowing back to him. And I have found that God responds

in a powerful way when I do this. As we pray these verses back to God, we begin to

experience what David did in his life:

The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart. He helps

me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.

—Psalm 28:7, NL

The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.

—Psalm 118:14, ESV

The prophet Isaiah also experienced God in a powerful way:

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the

Lord GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

—Isaiah 12:2–3, ESV

But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar

on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and

not be faint.

—Isaiah 40:31

Jesus tells us his words are life. They shed light within, enlightening our heart,

strengthening our inner person, so the person of Jesus Christ can dwell in our heart. The

Apostle Paul wrote:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one

another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with

thankfulness in your hearts to God.

—Colossians 3:16, ESV

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power

through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your

hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in

love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp

how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know

this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure

of all the fullness of God.

—Ephesians 3:16–19

In Jeremiah we read, "When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my

heart's delight, for I bear your name, Lord God Almighty" (Jeremiah 15:16). Here, we

see the mechanics for experiencing God in our lives. When the words of God came to

him, Jeremiah ate them. In other words, he internalized them by memorizing and

meditating on them (Spiritual M & Ms!). These words became his heart's delight! That is

why I like to say, "Read it, eat it, live it … and God will visit to perform his Word toward

you In the book of Psalms we read, "Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires

of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). As we delight in the Lord

and his Word, his desires will become our desires.

Our prayer life will come into harmony with his will.

We will see more answered prayer because we are

praying in conformance to his desires: "This is the confidence we have in approaching

God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he

hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him" (1 John

5:14–15).

The way we think, act, and talk all reflect what is in our hearts. What we nurture in our

hearts will govern our behavior. We need to stay focused on God's Word in order to be

filled with Christ and accomplish his purposes. When we sow God's Word, we will find

that our converterlating takes on new direction, meaning, and impact!