TO CARE FOR THE GARDEN

Father Your Word is a lamp and if the deed is good they will bring it to your light.
Amen

This is not a devotional, it's a mini manual.
Print it out and study it.
Pass it on.
God loves you and I do too! :)

...And The LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Genesis 2:15




Praise God!
The sower prepares the ground.


What you say prepares the ground and makes it good for planting the seed.



There are so many strategies to "win the world", " be a witness for Christ" "teach disciples" and few of them line up with what Jesus Christ did to save souls.

God has given man everything that pertains to life and godliness in Holy Scripture.

But for some reason men choose common living over God.

You have to be an actual follower of Christ before you can lead other people to Him.
Not merely a church goer, church worker, or religious but a follower of Christ Jesus.

Let's look at Mark 4.



The LORD Jesus said, if you don't understand this parable, you won't understand any of His parables.

So to be following Christ means that we are first seeking His way of doing, right?
The righteousness of God.

Can you be too heavenly minded?
Not if heaven is your home.
Not according to God.
Colossians 3:1,2; Proverbs 15:24

Okay



The parable of the sower has been traditionally taught as only describing the types of

people that the Word of God is sown into.

So the lost or the newly saved have been referred to as the ground.



When you study the scriptures this parable also describes what type of sower is sowing.
I haven't heard anyone teach it this way, but the Lord and The Holy Spirit opens it up when you meditate.


No farmer just goes out and drops seed on concrete, if he did he would be known as


"The Stony Sower"

If a farmer sowed seed among thorns, He would be known as "The Thorny Sower"

A farmer who dropped it anywhere with no explanation or reason would be labeled


"The Wayside Sower"

The "Good Ground Sower" doesn't just drop it by the way, on top of the soil or among thorns.

The Good Sower prepares the ground.

So we learned from Jesus Christ that we have different types of ground and different types of sowers.

The type of ground is determined by the sower.
I see a lot of blame going forth from the pulpit out into the congregation and not enough acknowledging of responsibility of the shepherd.

A shepherd has a job.

If you are a sower of The Word you know that what makes the ground good is what you say. Because faith comes by hearing and hearing by understanding the Word of God.

Romans 10:17


The problem arises when the one speaking doesn't understand the Word of God.
You may have learned how to observe people but it does you no good if you haven't learned how to observe The Word of The Living and True God.

I have sat in groups with educated people who were trained to observe people and they were the most judgmental and ambitious group I had ever met.
Their ambition, education and observation of people was failing them when it came time to sow seed that would produce lasting fruit.

Make a tree good and it's fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and it's fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by it's fruit.

Let's look at the parable in Mark 4, this is Jesus teaching a multitude His doctrine.

Hearken;' Hear means to do more than listen but seek to understand what He is saying' behold, there went out a sower to sow:

And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fouls of the air came and devoured it up.
Mark 4:3,4
Let's understand this first type of ground and sower.

Mark 4:14,15
14 The sower sows the Word.

15 And these are they by the way side, where the Word is sown; but when they have heard,
satan comes immediately, and takes away the Word that was sown in their hearts.

If faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word are you saying that satan can come and steal my faith?

Yes, he can come and steal anything that you don't understand, because you have not understood it, you don't value it, therefore you will not guard it.

The LORD Jesus said:

How can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.

He that is not with me is against me, and he that is not with me scattereth abroad.

Matthew 12:29,30

What binds the man so that he is stolen from?

The letter of the law.

Let's look at Matthews record.

Matthew 13:19

When anyone heareth the Word of The Kingdom, and understands it not, then comes the wicked one, and catches away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.

Now when you look at this you see the (way side) as being the position that the ground represents.



So it's men who have labeled and blamed the ground for it's position and called it wayside.


And then it's satan who is blamed because he comes immediately.


Does any of this sound Genesis 3:12,13 familiar?

The ground can't be blamed for the position that it's in because the ground didn't lay it self down there.

All men fall short of the glory of God and are in need of a Saviour.

Pay attention.

Where does this leave the sower?

Because the garden is given to the sower to dress it and keep it.

You make the ground good.

But when you preach condemnation and people believe that they are coming to Christ for guilt's sake their conversion is questionable.


People are going to mess up because they are living in the body and on this earth with a mind that needs to be renewed by the Word of God.
This is not a script, this is real life.
And that mind renewing doesn't take place at the time of salvation, the spirit man is born again instantly, the mind renewal is a daily lifetime process.

It's not just something you do on Sunday and then joke and act a fool all the rest of the week.
Enjoy life but don't destroy someone else with your lack of knowledge.

When the love of God is not understood and a man makes a mistake his heart feels that it has failed God completely, and soon will feel as though it could never be good enough for God.
This is how people fall hard away from God into alcohol, drugs, sexual promiscuity, and even suicide.

They don't know that they are being held to a standard that the men who preach it to them are not even holding to.

They are failing to teach them what putting your trust in Jesus truly means.

The sower who fails to teach them in the beginning that they could never be good enough apart from Jesus has failed them. Because it's Jesus who makes them good enough.

So the Word sown is devoured by guilt, It's choked by wanting to be rich, and burned up through fear of end times and scorches dries up, withers and blows away.

This is what compromising the Word of God is.
Compromise is to blend the qualities of two different things.
You can't blend the law with God's Grace.
It will discredit The One Christ Jesus.

The Word exposes the old covenant as being unauthorized as the gospel of reconciliation to righteousness.

God's desire is not for men to come to Him in fear but in reverence for understanding His goodness.

They may listen to you say that they must be born again through a quick, slick, slight of men speech but without understanding God's love, there decision was emotion based and made under pressure.


God doesn't emotionally pressure folks into turning to Him.

The Apostle Paul said that he didn't preach the gospel with the wisdom and cunning skill of the apologist, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect, for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

The Apostle Paul also said in 2 Corinthians 7:3, I speak not to condemn...

Neither Paul nor Christ Jesus asked questions to produce a feeling of guilt but they spoke to teach and exhort.

God is not a terrorist who goes around threatening men.

A threat is an expression of intention to inflict evil, injury or damage.

It's a menace.

A threat is something that is designed to annoy produce fear and torment.

And if you receive the threat taking it into your heart and spirit the enemy has planted doubt and now you are threatened, tormented.

A threat is just that a threat, it won't necessarily be carried out, but a promise from God will.

God is faithful and He is far more faithful than a terrorist is.

Perfect love casts out fear because fear has torment.

1John 4:18; John 10:10

How do you perfect holiness in the reverence of God?

By having the promises of God.

God promises to punish sin.

God promises to save those who put their faith in Christ Jesus.

It is the goodness of God that leads men to turn from sin.

These are not threats but promises.

Anyone who has not truly known what they have believed from the beginning is open to someone else coming along and coaxing them into believing something else.

If they can't give an answer as to why they follow Christ and what it is that makes them a Christian, they will turn from Him and follow what sounds even more logical than the initial pressure they felt to follow Christ.

This is why a young woman can say that she has accepted Christ 3 or 4 times in her life.

Because she had been approached by "Way Side Sowers"

What example did Jesus leave for us in The gospels to follow?

How did He prepare the ground in people so that He could deliver the Word that delivered them?

The only people that Jesus had to bring to the end of them selves with the law where the ones who believed that they knew it all already and where generous givers and doing what the Word had called for because they were wealthy and would not receive instruction or correction.

This is why I talk about the rich young ruler and the woman caught in adultery.

Scoffers and scorners, arrogant men who boast and brag that they are doing righteously these are the men that king David warned us not to be in there company in Psalm 1.

David said that their counsel was ungodly and like the chaff they would blow away.

What they do instead of keeping true to the Gospel is they gather their friends who will agree with them, not turning from the very error of their ways, yet they try and frighten others by telling them that they won't enter the kingdom.

Matthew 23: 8-13

Blind Guides

These are the ones who Jesus had to explain the law to.

These are the men and women who The prophets of old spoke of when the spoke of apostasy.

That they would gather themselves among them selves and pat each other on the back and deny Jesus before men.

Don't fail to share with folks that Jesus fulfilled the law because none of us could.

Luke 7:36-50 Study this example out.

Look at how when even Peter and John healed the lame man he leaped up with joy, he wasn't somber and guilt ridden.

He went and told someone else about what happened to him.

Are the people you minster to leaping for joy after you leave them?

Are they running and telling folks about what you shared or are they scared, ashamed and confused?

Look at the fig tree and how the LORD expected to eat from it because the leaf looked green but when He drew near, it hadn't yielded any fruit.

The wheel is turning but it ain't moving nothing.

The LORD cursed that tree and dried it up at the root that it would never ever do that again to anyone.

Don't be the fig tree with no fruit, or the well without water, be a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth fruit in his season.

God's desire is that the fruit remain, and not be tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.

The Apostle Paul said, don't receive any other gospel.

Paul said, Don't allow your mind to be corrupted and turned from the simplicity that is In Christ.
Paul asked,

Now if the ministry that brought death which was engraved on letters in stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of it's glory, fading though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?

If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!

For what was glorious has no comparison with the surpassing glory.

Christ and not the ten commandments is that surpassing glory.

And if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts.

Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away.

But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.

Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord is, the veil is taken away.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!

Sow God's Grace and teach men how to guard the Word of truth and Grace that is sown in to their heart.

Matthew 12:33; Psalm 1:1-6 ; 2 Corinthians 3:7-17

Are you a "Wayside Sower"

Turn from it and prepare the ground for a harvest that will remain.

LOVE Y'ALL :)