To begin, the invitations of Christ. The first invitation of Christ is repent- this invitation was for people who had rejected Christs invitations. These people had eager hearts to listen, as a result, some turned from their ways while others still rejected Him. An example, Matthew 4:17- Jesus is warning those who have rejected Him that the end is near and that they still have time to turn from their ways. Then there are the believers- Jesus was speaking to everyone, they had all believed by the things they had seen Jesus do. They had peace knowing that Jesus would accept them. An example, John 1:50- Jesus goes around and people acknowledge He is not a normal man by the miracles He performs. Also the followers, they were ordinary people that Jesus spoke to. They were curious as they asked many questions and were obedient and brave when they left everything to follow Jesus. An example, Matthew 19:28- Peter asks what he will get for following Jesus and Jesus tells him that when He comes to judge the world, His believers will inherit eternal life. Next was the love/deny invitation- Jesus spoke to all different types of people; believers, non believers and His disciples. All people had shown interest but needed to pick up their cross to follow Him. An example, Matthew 5: 46- Jesus tells the audience to love their enemies and Mark 8:3- Christ tells the crowd they must pick up their cross. Finally, go/teach, God spoke to the people who had been rejected- still somehow they found peace in hearing Him. They all had open hearts and minds and felt encouraged by Jesus to share with others what they had been taught. Jesus had also prepared their hearts for persecution. An example, Matthew 11:1- Jesus instructs His disciples to go and teach in Galilee and Matthew 10:16- Jesus prepares the hearts of His followers for persecution.
Moving on, the stages of spiritual growth. We have looked at the invitations of Christ, now to analyzing and comparing the invitations to the parable of the sewer. The parable describes how the heart of men respond to the word of God. We know that ultimately Jesus is the word of God, and that the word of God is living and active and penetrates the hearts of the reader. In the first invitation- repent- the hearts of the people are hard and skeptical and they are not receptive to the word of God. This means that they are the "path" in the parable, they are hard-hearted and not receptive to the word of God, therefore they can not bear fruit. Then the believers, they are people in need of understanding as their hearts are seeking Jesus. They are quick to believe but their faith is like the "shallow soil"- short-lived, have no root and are later scorched by the sun. In the third invitation-followers- their hearts are new in their faith, they have many questions and need to know more about Jesus. Like the "shallow soil", they lack knowledge, need answers and lack foundation. Next the invitation of love/deny-these people have been followers of Christ but are facing the challenge of having to decide between following worldly pleasures of following Jesus.Who will they love and deny? In the parable they are the "weeds" they had once been growing but the weeds came along and chocked the life from the plants. Finally, the invitation of go/teach- these are people who are following their rabbi, they are growing and multiplying in number as they share with others what they have learned. In the parable they are "bearing fruit" as they understand why they are following, as they multiply in number and as they are ready to go out and share the good news with others.
After completing the word study, I learned that Jesus is understanding. He had spoke with ordinary people, His disciples were fishermen and tax collectors (Matthew 8:23, Matthew 9:9). He had preached to large crowds in which he understood their problems, He even healed a sick girl with a worried dad (Matthew 9:19). Later, Jesus answers Peters questions when he asks what his reward will be for following Him (Matthew 19:28). Then we see that Jesus had prepared His disciples for what it is like preaching in the big world. He tells them that they will face persecution. But he prepares them, because Jesus had been down that road before (Matthew 4:19, Matthew 10:16, Luke 10:3). These all revealed to me Jesus' understanding of human struggles and to me its refreshing to know I'm not alone.
To conclude this essay with my thoughts I would say that I am the weeds in the love and deny category. I think this because I am a believer of Christ, however, there are times when I get distracted and lose sight of the bigger picture. The parable mentions that the worries of life side track a believer and choke the belief out of them. This is me, I am constantly worried about what people think of me as I hate letting people down. I'm a people pleaser, but I quickly and sadly found out that really, you cant please everyone! I also am struggling to find the motivation to keep going in my faith. I want to stay strong but I am battling with my grades and schooling, my future career, and overall, with what I'm going to do with my life; I'm worried that these worries are over-riding my relationship with Christ. I also am feeling discouraged as this unit has talked about where a person is in their faith, but not how a person can move forward in their faith. Does this mean I will stay a "weed" forever, forever worrying about my future? I hope not because Matthew 6:34 tells me "[to] not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." And Luke 12:26 says "since you can not do this little thing, why do you worry?" I just need more clarification as well as encouragement to be able to move forward in my relationship with Christ. This way I will no longer be a "worrying weed."
Thank you for visiting and let me know what you think in the comments. Hope to see you back for my next blog!
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