The Word To Live By: 3-12-26
Phil Waggoner
Now therefore, my sons, listen to me, and depart not from the words of my mouth. Proverbs 5:7
The Word To Live By: I know yesterday I said I would get to Mark 11:24 today, but I saw something this morning in the Word that I need to address in order to keep clarifying Mark 11:23. In the WTLB on the 10th, I used Romans 10:17, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God,” and said that you can change the course of your life by changing what you say to and about yourself. (If I didn’t say that, it’s what I meant.) So, here’s what I saw this morning in Mark 4. First of all, before He explained the parable of the Sower Sows the Word to His disciples, He said, “If you don’t understand this parable, how will you understand all the parables?” The whole “living by faith” thing is tied into what God said in Genesis 8:22, “As long as the earth exists … there shall be seed time and harvest.” Then He began with “The sower sows the Word.” After Jesus explained the parable, in Mark 4:24 He said, “Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure, it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides.” Remember, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Now, skip down to verses 26-28, “And He was saying, ‘The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil (the seed is the Word of God, and the soil is your spirit); and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows - how, he himself does not know. (He just has faith that it will. I personally don’t care how the will of God comes to pass in my life; I just believe it will.) The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head.” We could get into all kinds of things about the blade, the head, then the mature grain, such as don’t pull your crop up until it’s mature, but we won’t. What I want you to see is your spirit is going to produce the fruit of the seed you put into it. What you constantly listen to, you will eventually believe. I want to tie all of this together with 2 Corinthians 4:7,13,18. “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed, therefore I spoke,’ we also believe, therefore we also speak… while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Planted seeds are not seen but their fruit does have the potential to be eternal. Tomorrow, Mark 11:24. MAYBE 😊
Read through the Bible in a year: Matthew 14:1-21; Leviticus 20-21; Proverbs 30;
Read through the New Testament and Proverbs: Proverbs 12, Mark 8:1-19, 2 Corinthians 11
The sum of Thy Word is Truth Psalm 119:160