11 May 2010
Psalm 78:1-39; Lev. 26:1-20; 1 Tim. 2:1-6; Matt. 13:18-23

The promises of God for faithfulness are blessing beyond belief; rains in season, abundance in harvests, peace in the land, He will make them fruitful and multiply them, maintain the covenant, and make His dwelling among them. The promises of God for unfaithfulness are frightening to consider: terror upon them, consumption and fever, the wasting away of life, crops that are eaten by the enemy, He will set His face against them, enemies ruling over them, devastation and destruction. The choice seems simple, it was no different in the beginning and we chose badly then. How do we fail so? Faithful obedience is not our forte, it takes careful, constant attention to life to be followers of the Lord.

The parable of the soils explained. Our need is for the ground of our hearts and minds to be broken up, improved and allowed to be cleared of all that works against fruitfulness. It is a long hard process to reclaim land for fruitfulness and we must remember that we are a work in progress and will be until we leave this life behind. The glory of that which is eternal is something we must always keep before us as we work together with Him to become like Him. It requires three basic things for ground to be improved in the spiritual life: the Word dwelling richly in us through study and meditation, the prayer of acceptance of the goodness of God and His will to be done in our lives, and the disciplines necessary to re-train us towards godliness.

Paul urges prayers for leaders so that they might know the truth, rule wisely and allow us to live peaceable and quiet lives. It couldn’t have been easy for the churches to have heeded this command from Paul as they lived in times and places where the church was powerless and vulnerable. We in the west are seeing our hegemony come to an end it seems as the culture becomes less and less enchanted with the Christian story. In some ways that is a good thing because for too long we have allowed ourselves to believe that being vaguely Christian is somehow acceptable to God and Christians have failed to be salt and light to the world. We need to get back to the basics of faithful obedience as a witness to the ones who point to a different way of being, the hope of glory.

I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children,
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.