How the Kingdom Works
Read: Mark 4:26-33
Key Verse: Mark 4:26 – And he said, so is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground.
In order to effectively live the kingdom life, one must know how it works. The kingdom operates on the principle of sowing seeds and the law of seed-time-harvest. Once you get the principle, you can apply it to the rest of your life. When a farmer scatters seed on the ground, it grows by night, and he sees the seed sprouted in the morning, he has just worked as a partner with God. Man has done what he could do – plant the seed; and God has done what only He can do: grow the seed. The secret of growth is in the seed. Every seed reproduces after its kind – it just needs the right environment.
Exactly how the seed grows is a mystery to the farmer. Though it grows by a process he cannot see nor fully account for, he has faith in the growing process. So, it is with the Kingdom of God: we work in partnership with God, yet the real work is left up to Him – we trust in a process we cannot see nor fully account for.
The kingdom of God follows a process – it’s progressive – first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. Because Jesus said that the Parable of the Sower was a key for understanding other parables (Mark 4:13), we can say that the seed He speaks of here represents the word of God, as it did in the Parable of the Sower. Therefore, with this parable, Jesus shows how the word of God works with hidden and mysterious power, just like a seed. At the end of the process, the harvest comes.
Whatever we want to receive from the kingdom, we must plant/sow. Just as a farmer cannot expect a harvest, if he has not planted seed, we cannot expect to receive from the kingdom, if we have not sown first. It all starts with the seed. No seed = no harvest.
Thought for the day:
What seeds can I sow today to reap the harvest I desire tomorrow?