Words of Jesus Podcast - Nourishment For The Seed

Episode Date: January 6, 2023

It is our privilege and responsibility to participate in our salvation. We must provide the environment which allows the seed of Christ to grow to maturity. Being born again is not instant. The forgiveness we receive must be reciprocated in all our relationships. The exercise of keeping the commandments lets God know we are serious about going His way. Taking time to listen every day builds the discipline we need to be servants to our Lord. We are not entering the democracy of God. We are entering a kingdom. We have a Lord, if we obey him.*** Ch. 30 - Jesus Teaches the Kingdom in ParablesTHE SEED (Mark 4:36-29)            Jesus spoke another parable, saying:             “So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.  For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.  But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.”A MUSTARD SEED (Matt. 13:31, 32; Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:18, 19)            Then Jesus, speaking another parable, likened the kingdom of God to a mustard seed that grows from a small grain into a large plant:            “Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what comparison shall we compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth. But when it is sown, it growth up, and becometh greater than all hers, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.” LEAVEN (Matt. 13:33; Luke 13:20, 21)            Then Jesus compared the kingdom of Heaven with leaven, saying:             “The kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.”THE HIDDEN TREASURE (Matt. 13:44)            Jesus spoke another parable, likening the kingdom of Heaven to a hidden treasure.  He said:             “Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field-which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.”THE COSTLY PEARL (Matt. 13:45, 46)            Jesus told another parable to teach his listeners what the kingdom of Heaven is. He said:            “Again, he kingdom of Heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls—who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, as bought it.”A NET (Matt 13:47-53)            Jesus likened the kingdom of Heaven to a net, saying:             “Again, the kingdom of Heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind—which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world. The angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,...

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus series with Don C. Harris Hello my friends, Don Harris here. You're listening to the Words of Jesus series. And we are in chapter 30 of our little book called The Words of Jesus. And enjoying walking through the red ink. You might want to take a look at the bottoms of your feet. If they're starting to get stained with red, we're on our way.

The idea is for us to learn to think red ink, and we're just going to have to wade through this until it starts to stick. And as it does, you're going to find your life just gets better and better. I try to encourage people to know that because I tell them the third principle that I try to get across to people is we need to have some time every day to hear the voice of God. Notice I didn't say that we need to pray every day because people don't understand that what was prayer years ago, which was taking time every day to hear the voice of God for ourselves, has now

turned into this lecture series that we assume God has signed up for that every day He stops at a certain time to listen to what it is you have to say. I don't know why you think that you're going to tell Him something that He doesn't know. Most people who believe in this daily monologue that they have with God are usually people who believe that God is omniscient and He knows everything. And so they struggle with the thought from time to time,

if God knows everything, then why do I need to pray? Well, Jesus asked the same question. Don't you know my Father knows you have need of all these things? So what is this time that you're talking about? Well the time is to listen. And so I want to encourage you. You have to know that because you don't necessarily hear a voice in your ear, you don't hear any rumblings coming up from inside you unless it's been very close to some meal.

So what are we listening for? What do we want to hear from God? And frankly, why don't we hear it? I've had people tell me, I've been practicing that for a couple, three days or whatever, and I ain't heard no voice. Okay, I understand that, but I'm afraid you might have misunderstood what I've been trying to tell you. And that is that God has a relationship, friend, at the beginning, God has

a relationship not with you, but with that seed that is within you. And so it's nourishment for this seed, this umbilical between that we participate in every day, that we listen to the voice of God. This is how this seed receives its nutrient. It's how this comes to fruition in our life. It's how this baby is brought to the birth. And there will be times when you're going to think that this is all just a waste of time. But you're going to be embarrassed one day if your attitude is this doesn't work. Because if you continue doing this,

if you continue at least opening yourself to the voice of God, and I know I run a risk every time I say voice. People think I'm talking about words coming through heaven into your ears. And when I talk about he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. And you talk about the word of God, the voice of God. And if you don't look at this thing in a spiritual way, you're going to miss what it's actually saying to us. And that is that there's

a nutrition that we have to have with our Father. And without it, I'm afraid that the child that is within us, that seed of Christ, they could easily miscarry this. And as long as that is alive in us, we may not have manifestations, physical or audible manifestations that we can put our finger on and say, you know, this is the Lord speaking to me, as so many people are so

they say so easily, you know, the Lord told me this and the Lord speaking to me, and so many people are so, they say so easily, you know, the Lord told me this and the Lord told me that. And I understand what they're trying to say, but you're just confusing the issue for people who are sincerely trying to hear the voice of the Lord for themselves. Now, in these particular cases, what you're going to find is what I find many people do, and it happens to many people, and that is that they find themselves in a situation way after the time of prayer, days, months, perhaps even years, that they have been practicing this and living this way. They find coming from within them

the ability to handle a certain situation that would have literally destroyed them, would have literally killed them a year ago had that come about in their life without having these conversations, essentially conversations with God. And you're going to find yourself using wisdom that you never even felt like you had, citing knowledge that there's no way you could even have such a thing. You're going to walk into situations that were doomed to, destined to explode in your face a year ago, but now you walk into it and you find you having said the right thing to the right person at the proper time and totally diffusing a situation

that would have destroyed you and perhaps people you love. Perhaps cost you thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Perhaps cost you years off of your life. It would have. It would have, but not now. Well, what is that? Man, that's the voice of God training us and teaching us. We have a DVD series here at TRI called On Guidance. It's about six hours of teaching. And in all that, I try to explain this,

that many times the voice of God manifests itself to us, not in an immediate way, but in this way of us just getting better and we really don't even know it until the pressure's on, until the problems actually come. And it might occur to you the next day, perhaps next week, perhaps a month from then, oh my goodness, I can't believe I handled that with that kind of finesse. I really don't hate that guy. I really did forgive him.

How did that happen? We're still friends even after he cheated me. I can hardly even remember what he's done. The Lord has restored fourfold anything that was ever taken from me. And how did all this happen? How did this come about? Didn't come about by Sunday school. No, it comes about because we're made better every day by giving the Lord a chance to converse with that seed within us until Christ be formed in you. I mean, that's what this is all

about. I don't need to be my best, be the best me I can be. I know the best me I can be and it ain't much. But what I want to do is I want to be a container of the personage of Jesus Christ himself. I want to think red ink. I want to live in that way. I want to live like he lived and think like he thought. That's what I want. I don't want to be the best bee I can be. I want to be the best me that He had intended for me to be all along. There's only one way to do that.

Now as Jesus was teaching about the kingdom of God, and by the way all the things we're talking about right now, this is life in the kingdom of God. This is not life subject to the politicians of the day, the laws of the day, the judicial system of today, our hateful neighbors that treat us bad, or whomever is giving you trouble. We're not really supposed to be living under that kind of pressure. We're supposed to be living in the kingdom of God.

Now granted, and I have to say here because I think some people can misunderstand, there is such a thing as a spiritual kingdom of God. Jesus talked about it. And where did he say it was? Do you remember? He said the kingdom of God is within you. The kingdom of God is within you. The kingdom of God is within you. Well, isn't that where the seat of Christ is? Yes, that's where it is as well. So we have the kingdom of God within us. Now there is a time when the kingdom of God is going to come on the earth in physical form.

But right now he has no legal right to it because the ruler of this world has not been conquered by the onslaught of the armies of Christ that are going to come at the end of this world and redeem this world. You know redeeming this world was as much a part of the plan of salvation as you being saved? It was a part of it.

I don't know if you know this or not, but not only is God fairly upset about the fact that He lost His man that He loves so much, but He also lost the dirt that we live on. As a matter of fact, he lost it all. The day that he turned everything in this world over to Adam, and Adam turned it all over to Satan. Remember we talked about Satan at the temptations and the kingdoms of this world, they're mine. They were given unto me

and I'll give them to whomsoever I will. When did that happen? When Adam did what Satan said to do. See, when you obey, when you obey, when you obey. You listening? When you obey, that is worship. When you obey, that's worship. When you obey, all right, I get it, I get it.

Well, do you get it? Because I know that when it comes time to worship God, everybody's willing to raise their hands. Everybody's willing to boo-hoo a little bit or sing a song, beller out a song or two, and we call that worship, and we have congregational singing, and we have all the things and we call that worship and we have congregational singing and we have all the things that we call worship. But you know, true worship is doing what you're told to do.

That's how we worship God. That's how we, that's how we make him our ruler. That's how we succumb to him as our ruler, our sovereign, our king, by obeying him, by doing what he says to do. Jesus says that, you know what? You can be my disciples if you, if you do as I say. I know these are very unpopular thoughts in the day of easy believism, and all you got to do is believe, and God doesn't care what you do. He only cares what you believe. It's all hogwash, friends. It's all hogwash. There's no truth in it at all. He's saying that to make himself feel better. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about you. It's him. He's the one that's wanting to feel better about living

some lavish lifestyle or doing whatever it is he wants to do and not being a servant to God and considering himself to be better than people or and establishing a hierarchy in his church and ignoring the words of Jesus that one is your teacher me and all of you are brethren he knows that he read it in his Bible. Why isn't he preaching it? It doesn't satisfy him. So what's he telling us to do? Just believe. No, no, no. That's not going to bring about the kingdom of God. What is going to bring the kingdom of God in its fullness on this earth? It's going to be the subjects of the kingdom of God, me, you, everybody, doing what we're told to do. Now, when we do that, what we're going to find is almost no reward whatsoever.

Why? Because the kingdom of God, well, let's just see what Jesus says. He says, where unto shall I liken the kingdom of God? Or with what comparison shall we compare it? It's like a grain of mustard seed, which when it's sown in the earth is less than all the seeds that be in the earth. But when it's sown, it groweth up

and become greater than all herbs and shooteth out great branches so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it friend this is a principle about the kingdom of god it's a principle about business it's a principle about your family about your marriage about the growth of your children this is a principle that is underlying almost every operation of life. It starts out very, very small. So as you seek the voice of God, don't look for the heavens to shake. Don't look for gold letters printed in the sky. Don't look for him to overtake your life and falling out under the power or

having visions. Don't look for that kind of thing. Everything starts out small. Why? Why would he do that? If you were to have a vision, perhaps a prophecy, perhaps the Lord revealed something to you, gave you a revelation, an earth-changing, earth-shattering revelation,

do you know none of us could live with you tomorrow? We wouldn't even want you to be around. You would be yammer, yammer, yammering about how what a wonderful person you are and how God's chosen you among all the rest and setting yourself on a pedestal, it would absolutely destroy your life. Probably. Take your soul. So what is he doing he's giving us a little bit at a time is he not why is that because he knows that he that's faithful in a little will be faithful in a lot and that's just the he's just the perfect father he knows exactly how to do this he knows exactly how to raise us. He knows exactly how to raise us, if you will, so that whether we live under a curse or a blessing,

we're not going to be destroyed. Whether he gives us riches or he sees fit to allow the worst of tragedies to come into our life, we're not going to be destroyed. We're going to walk through this thing. We're going to do it well. Why? Because of that little seed that started.

Because you decided somewhere along your life, I'm not going to go my way anymore. I'm going to go the Lord's way. I'm going to make friends with God. I want to be friends. I don't need somebody else chasing me. And especially not him. So I'm going to do what he says.

Well, friend, that's a really good idea. But what you're going to find is there's going to be a microscopic seed planted in you at that point. And it's up to us to live righteously. I didn't say sinlessly. Get that out of your thinking. We've talked about this. But to live righteously, to create an environment for that seed to grow and grow, it will and grow into Christ in you. The mystery that has been hid since the foundation of the world.

This was his intention from the very beginning to be in us. Now if you'll notice at the first Pentecost the one where the law was given at Mount Sinai, when the law was being given from that mountain it almost destroyed and the Lord admitted later, well yeah, I guess these people are right. If they hear these laws, looking at themselves in the light of my glory

and who I am, it probably will kill them. So I'll tell you what to do, Moses. Let's just write them down on rock, and we'll hand them to them, and you can explain it as we go. But they're not ready to do this. Well, at the second Pentecost, you are going to find that that was not the case at all. The Spirit of God came and came into these people and because they were ready for it, because they had matured, because the seed was no longer a seed, it wasn't a mustard seed anymore.

It was growing into a tree. It was maturing. It was becoming something great. And all because Jesus Christ was on the earth showing this, how this is to be done. It's a beautiful story, and it ends in a beautiful way. And that is that the Spirit of God actually did come inside these beings, these 120 people that were waiting at Pentecost to receive the gift from on high. This is the very same Spirit that fell on the children of Israel at Sinai that almost destroyed

them it almost killed them how could the very same spirit that was was killing them at one time fill them to the overflowing the second time with joy that was that was so evident it was evident to people who were bystanders and actually designated the entire group of people in there as drunk. How could that have happened? What is the difference? Did he mix up a new concoction of spirit? Was it different? Absolutely not.

It was the same spirit. But one was planted in a barren ground. There was no seed of Christ there. Christ hadn't even made himself available. He couldn't make himself available to the sinful people of that day. Sin had to be dealt with. The sacrifices needed to be made. There were so many things that had to be done. And as soon as he did that and died that Passover,

that Pentecost, 50 days after that Pentecost that occurred, there were people there that the seed of Christ had been in. And it had taken root. Gestation had commenced. And these people were ready to receive the Spirit of God. And receive it they did. And it changed their entire lives and gave them power beyond anything they understood.

Okay, what is this all about? Just relax. Just take it easy. You know, nothing's going to, there's no such thing as an instantaneous baptism in the Spirit, instantaneous salvation, instantaneous knowing all that God has to tell us. There's no instantaneous having possession of the wisdom of God instantaneously. None of this stuff is instantaneous. None of it is. There's a principle in our world.

It's conception and pregnancy and gestation and birth. It's the seed that goes into the ground and it's pushed into the dirt. And two or three days later and two or three days later two or three days later you might see a little cotyledon pop up out of the soil and there it is right there it is what happened well the seed was planted and you had to wait and you had to water and you had to make an environment for that seed that wasn't hostile to its uh to its fertilization to its um to its uh germination and coming out of the ground and sure enough there it is here's what i want you to know

that if you do turn around today and you say you know i'm not going to go that way anymore i'm going to go this way i'm going to go god's way what he says to go, he tells me to keep his commandments. I'm going to keep his commandments. Do you realize at that point, by the way, according to Ezekiel, you have just made yourself safe. There is nothing for you to worry about after that point. I'm not one who believes that we need to get saved today and worry about losing it tomorrow.

No, no, no. But, I mean, his promise was, you go my way, I'll never remember anything you ever did wrong. You know, first time I read that, I thought, are you sure about that? That's not much of a deal on your part. I've done a lot of things wrong. Speaking to a God who is well aware,

I don't know why we do that, but I was just taken aback by the whole thing. So when we do do that, nothing instantaneously has happened except that the capereth, the covering, the atonement of our sin. Our sins are covered. Why? So that God can speak to us, so that he can be a part of our life. Because as long as these sins are exposed, you know, what did he say? My arm's not too short that I can't reach and grab you. My ear's not heavy that it can't hear you cry.

But your sins have separated between you and your God. So these sins, how could they be forgiven? Christ hasn't even died yet. I mean, we're talking about in the Old Testament situation. How could they be forgiven? If Christ hasn't died and the sacrifice has not been made, what are we going to do? Let's call atonement. Atonement's not forgiveness. Atonement is covering. And just like the fig leaves covered the obvious nakedness of Adam and Eve, the atonement covers the sins that are exposed in us

and embarrass us in front of God and really create a situation between us and our God that cannot be maintained. A communicative relationship, it can't be maintained. So what do we need to do? We need to be covered. And that needs to be set aside. Well, he made that provision for us

so that as we decide to go his way, instantly, your sins are atoned. He'll never remember anything you've ever done wrong. But it ain't over, friend. It's not over. You've got tons of work to do. There's all kinds of things that need to happen in your life. Well, I'm pretty happy. You know, I've been saved for 40 years and everything's just fine. Is it really? Can I talk to your wife about that? Let me ask, let me see how happy she is. Or perhaps I can talk to your children. Oh, you don't know three out of five children's phone numbers. Look, you're no different than the rest of us. We've all got these kinds of problems, but you see, your kids, your grandchildren,

people around you, people that love you, people you love, they're all waiting for you to be a Christian. And some of them just can't wait anymore. And so they're gone. Does that bother you? Or are you just going to bathe in the fact that you're going to heaven when you die

or whatever little fairy tale you've made up in your head. Friend, it's time for us to change. It's time for us to be different. Not only act different, but have within us whatever it takes to be different. We need to be different kinds of people than we are. Have you ever run across somebody that's really good at doing something

that you'd like to be good at doing? I see somebody playing the piano, and I've said to whoever happens to be standing next to me at the time, I said, man, if I could play that like that, I would do that all the time. And we'll come to find out that's how you get to play like that, is by doing it all the time. Have you ever seen anybody that excels in an area that you wish you excelled in? It's because they put effort into it. Ah, okay, natural talent, I get all that, I understand that. But, you know, do you want to be understanding?

You need the understanding of God. You need to be understood. do you want to be understanding? You need the understanding of God. You need to be understood. Do you want to forgive? You need to be forgiven. One of the reasons you have so much trouble forgiving other people is because you've never been forgiven. You don't have any experience with forgiveness at all. Don't even know what it is.

Well, you're going to know it by the time we walk through all this red ink. It's going to be real apparent to you. You're also going to find that without it, you don't have a chance. There is no way you're going to see the kingdom of God unless you know how to forgive people. Friend, the best way to know how to forgive people is not to read your Bible and learn how. It's not to go to Sunday school and learn how. it's not to watch your best friend do it and do whatever he does the best way to do that is to be forgiven so if you find yourself falling off into some embarrassing sin there's lesson number one you're going to have to go to the lord you're going to have to be forgiven for that and uh but you see it's all for your. He will work all these things out to our good.

That's what the scripture means when it says to give thanks in all things. That's what it means when it says that all things work together for good to those who love God and those who are called according to his purpose. That's what it means. It doesn't mean we're not going to suffer tragedy, but tragedy is not going to suck life out of us. We're going to be better because of it. That's exciting to me. How do we do all this? By taking time every day to hear the voice of God.

And if you do that, you know, don't look for the thunderclap. Don't look for, to look outside the window after a lightning strike and see a huge mustard tree growing in your backyard. No, the truth is it's going to be very, very tiny seed that you're going to have to take care of. Okay, it's time for us to go. Until next time, we'll see you later. Bye-bye. Think Red Ink. you've been listening to don c harris of think red ink ministries ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you