Wow. I have never seen so much in commentaries of Matthew 13. I am buried here. It is speaking to me so heavily, and so much towards our society today, that mirrors society over 2000 years ago. We haven’t gotten it right in over 2000 years. That really speaks to how lost we are as a people. Along with the realization of that depravity comes a security and understanding of our true need for God. Dr. Ed Gravely has been speaking of much of this on Wednesday nights in the book of Luke too. “We must come to an end to ourselves” as one of my favorites Oswald Chambers said. We simply cannot rest on religion, for religion is not The Way. Our hearts will become hard in its rituals and practices, and not soft to the humble reception of the Word of God, the Seed of God, as the only Way. Rituals bring death, Christ brings life. Rest in Him as the only way to truly understand the word being delivered to you, and consecrate yourself to that word, spending time in prayer and meditation, and you too will begin to see the change in your life that you have no explanation for. except Christ.

Going through the motions

Matthew 13:3-4 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.

Are you going through the motions? Are you professing Christ and maybe going to church just to see and or be seen? Do you spend your time on Sunday’s just looking at your watch, or thinking of the after church plans? Christ is speaking of you here. Many of us today claim religion, and Christianity, but yet do not understand the Word being delivered to us. Matthew Henry said, “If we break not up the fallow ground by preparing our hearts for the Word, and humbling them to it, and not engaging our own attention; and if we cover not the seed (Word) afterwards by meditation and prayer”..we are this ground. We have become so dull to the Word of God by our lack of attention to it. “ For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed..” vs15.

Now the scary part in verse 19 “ When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart..” Satan is like a bird who swoops in and steals the seed that was planted on the hard grounds of your soul. If you have a wayward heart, not keen to the things of Christ, you are an easy target for Satan when you are just going through the motions. But in the second part of verse 15 we are promised “Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.” He is the only Way to truly understand the Word being delivered to you, by humbly accepting the free gift, and removing yourself from the snares of religious acts of going through the motions.

via Going through the motions.