Christianity Oasis Forum

[HelloMyNameIsSimon]

These aren't my words, they were taken from:

http://www.deafleaders.org/sermonpdfs/Pent04B.pdf

but they meant a lot to me, because I am desperate to sow the seeds of God's word in my family, my friends and everyone I meet.

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MARK 4:26-29
"God's kingdom is the same-as a man throwing seeds on the ground. The man sleeps at night and wakes-up in the morning. At the same time the seed grows, but the man doesn't understand how. The ground makes the seed grow and blossom..."
What's the point?
A Christian tells someone who is not Christian about Jesus. Will that person (the non-Christian) immediately accept and believe everything? Of-course not!
Now what does his Christian friend do?
Maybe Christian will give-up, thinking, "I failed." or "My friend rejected Jesus." ...Wrong.
Or the Christian make the opposite mistake. If the Christian thinks that he (the Christian) himself is responsible to make his friend believe in Jesus, maybe he will try to pressure his friend to believe.
That is like a farmer, planting a seed, but not satisfied to wait for the seed to grow by itself. The farmer will try to hurry to make the seed grow fast, pouring on more FERTILIZER. What will happen? That stupid farmer will ruin the soil, and kill all life in that seed. Then nothing will grow.
The wise farmer realizes that he is not responsible to make the seed grow. He can prepare the soil, but after he plants the seed, he needs to leave it alone, only to sometimes water it, and keep the weeds back. The seed takes time to grow roots. The seed takes time to change from a hard NUT to green STEM.
Faith in Jesus is the same way. We share God's Word. Then we wait. We pray. We show love. We serve. And, when it seems wise, we share more of God's Word.
It is God who makes faith grow in a person. We can't.
As the farmer never sees the seed growing in the soil, so we cannot see faith growing in our non-Christian friends.
Maybe a foolish farmer will check on his seed by digging up the soil. That only ruins a young baby plant. In the same way, if someone starts to have a baby faith, but he is not really ready to show his faith yet, a foolish Christian can damage that faith by trying to dig into his friend's private soul, where only God can see. The best thing the Christian can do is leave his friend's faith alone. Patiently wait for God take-care of his friend.
But what if faith never grows - the person you love never believes. What do you do? Give up?
Every farmer knows that not all seeds will grow. What does the farmer do. Give-up? No, farmer waits for the next season, next year. He will continue to prepare the soil, and when the time is right, he will plant more seeds.
We do the same with our non-Christian friends. We gently share Jesus with them, but they never trust Him. We wait. We love. We serve. We pray. And when the time is right, we share Jesus again. Then we continue waiting, and loving, and serving, and praying.
And then some day we may have the joy of the news of our friend trusting Jesus. We may be tempted to wonder what we said or what we did to finally make the person believe.
No, we did nothing. We only planted seed, God's Word. We don't know what happens between our friend and God, as God Himself brings our friend to faith.
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Please God, help me to be patient, in Jesus's name

Simon

[realtmg]

A seed has to die first before it can produce a blossom.

GBU

Real

[ServeGod]

God is really talking to me here Simon. Just finished reading about a similar message, but it had an archer, bow and arrow in it. Both stories have really uplifted me. I also have children, and maybe i need to sit back and watch Gods glory, all in good time, and Gods time.