A.W. Tozer once said the key to prayer is simply praying. We know prayer is of utmost importance, but we often overcomplicate it and give up before we even get started. In this series, our goal is to offer you a simple guide for how to pray in hopes of helping you enter into a life-long and life-giving practice.
Seedtime & Harvest
Speakers
Ken Blount
Pastor
Notes
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Luke 18:8 (NKJV)
…Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”
Genesis 8:22 (NKJV)
“While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, Cold and heat, Winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease.”
Faith is a process…The process of faith is best explained when we understand seedtime and harvest.
Mark 4:3 (NLT)
“Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seed.
1. Seed
The Word of God is likened to seed.
The seed of God’s Word is the answer to every challenge you will ever face.
2 Corinthians 1:20 (NKJV)
For all the promises of God in Him [are] Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.
When you have a need in life always ask…
What does the Bible say about this?
2. Sower
Mark 4:26 (NLT)
Jesus also said, “The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens.
Seed does no good until it is planted.
Genesis 2:5 (NLT)
Neither wild plants nor grains were growing on the earth. For the LORD God had not yet sent rain to water the earth, and there were no people to cultivate the soil.
You are living today in the seed you planted yesterday, be it good or bad.
What are you planting?
3. Soil
The soil is the human heart.
The condition of the soil determines the yield of the harvest.
The Word of God has the answer for everything we will ever face. But our heart determines the seeds effectiveness.
1. Foot path or Road - Birds come immediately and steal the Word.
2. Rocky soil.
Affliction and persecution arise for the Word’s sake.
Rocks are summed up in one word…rejection.
Isaiah 53:3 (NLT)
He was despised and rejected-- a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief…
3. Thorns and weedy soil.
“Cares of this world…deceitfulness of riches… lusts of other things.”
Distractions that grab your attention.
These things have to be managed or they will “choke out” the Word of God.
4. Good soil.
Mark 4:8 (NLT)
Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they sprouted, grew, and produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted!”
Your heart can change if you’re willing to work on it.
Hosea 10:12 (NLT)
I said, ‘Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground (fallow ground) of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.’
4. The seed has to die
John 12:24 (NKJV)
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.
2 Corinthians 1:20 (NKJV)
For all the promises of God in Him [are] Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.
2 Peter 1:3 (NKJV)
as His divine power has given to us all things that [pertain] to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption [that is] in the world through lust.
The promises are designed to…
1. Glorify God.
2. For you to become more like Him.
We must have rain for the seed die, and begin the resurrection process.
James 5:7 (NLT)
Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return. Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the spring. They eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen.
“Oh, the calmness of meeting with Jesus. All fears are gone. His tender mercies and indescribable peace is ours. I have all I have in Jesus. All God’s plans are to the end of yielded will. God is waiting for the precious fruit of the earth. The outcome of a sown life diviner, lovelier. The seed has to die. God awaits the death of the seed. It springs into new life.
The early rain is to make the seed die. To come to an end, ashes. And out of the ashes the great fire of consummation that shall burn in the hearts of people, the Word of the living God producing the Christ by the breath of the spirit. Ashes, then the latter rain appears a surging of life. The old finished. Now shall come forth on those that know the Father a surging life and the effects of the latter rain and universal outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The coming of the Lord is at hand”
Smith Wigglesworth