Week Three: Sowing Seed Day 17: Mustard Seed April 12, 2016

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"Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of

unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground;

for it is time to seek the LORD, until He comes

and showers righteousness upon you."

(Hosea 10:12)

Day Seventeen Devotions:

MORNING MEDITATION

AFTERNOON DEVOTION

EVENING PRAYER

MORNING MEDITATION

Glean the Word:

John 6:1-14

Glimpse of Glory: "Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to Me, and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare." (Isaiah 55:2)

Jesus drew large crowds of people who were more interested in watching Him perform miracles rather than wanting to know who He was (and is!). "...a great crowd of people followed Him because they saw the miraculous signs He had performed on the sick" (John 6:2). Jesus demonstrated that He cared about all their needs, both physical and spiritual, and He came to bring healing to those who had no idea they were even sick or in need of help. "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what it means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have come not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Matthew 9:12-13).

In the feeding of the five thousand the Lord demonstrated His power to not only meet the individual needs of people, regardless of time or space, but also His ability to satisfy the needs of a multitude with a simple offering of faith. Jesus took the opportunity that day to "test" His disciples faith, but their solutions to send the people away or have a fundraiser only showed they, like the people who had gathered, still had much to learn about the One who was in their midst. "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat" (Matthew 14:16). Jesus wants everyone to know that He is the source of all our needs, and if we will give Him all that we have (everything we have came from Him in the first place!), with thanksgiving in our hearts and praise upon our lips, He will multiply our offering and take care of all our needs. "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33).

As we spend our time in prayer this morning, let us consider all that the Lord has placed in our hands and in our hearts (physically, materially and spiritually), is to be shared and used to bless others. "I will satisfy My priests with abundance, and My people will be filled with bounty,' declares the LORD" (Jeremiah 31:14). The more we are willing to trust Him with what little we already have, the more He will multiply our offering to bring His blessings to others (as well as enlarge that circle of influence), and to grow us in our faith. May we all learn the lesson well that we can't out give God. "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you" (Luke 6:38).

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AFTERNOON DEVOTION

Glean the Word: Matthew 13:31-32

Gift of Grace: "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 17:20-21)

Jesus revealed through the parable of the mustard seed how the kingdom of God would grow and expand throughout the world. Like a mustard seed, which at that time was the smallest of all the seeds, the kingdom will start out small, but will eventually spread to the reach the entire world. "What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all the garden plants, with such big branches that all the birds of the air can perch in its shade" (Mark 4:30-32). Jesus planted within the hearts of His disciples a picture of the greatness of His kingdom which is to come; and gave them hope to rest and activate their faith upon. "Who despises the day of small things? Men will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel" (Zechariah 4:10).

The Lord asks only for a single grain of true faith in which to activate His power in and through our lives. So often our faith rests in our faith rather than the object of our faith, which is Christ, and the sad result is a depreciation of spiritual power. True faith, like a mustard seed, grows only as it is planted (in its' object - Christ Jesus), and cultivated and watered through prayer, fasting, and meditating on God's Word. It is by these spiritual disciplines that we lay hold of divine power. The more intentional and diligent we are in seeking the face of God, then "nothing will be impossible" for us. The nobleman in yesterday's reading brought salvation to his entire household because of his faith; and in tonight's evening meditation we will read of Abraham, whose faith in the promise of God would mean blessing for the entire world. When Jesus fed the 5000, He showed us what we can accomplish if we simply put all that we have into His trustworthy, powerful, all-sufficient hands. Believer, we have been given a kingdom to steward, and at our disposal is infinite blessings for the whole world, if we will simply have faith in God and act upon it in prayer. God's resources are infinite and they have been entrusted to the care of His children to distribute to a spiritually starved world. This afternoon let us take another look into our "spiritual lunch box" and ask the Lord to take our simple offering and multiply it in the life of another person as we step out in faith and share our food. Let us pray for the Body of Christ that we would be healthy and serviceable to our generation, laying hold of heaven's blessings to bring His saving grace to the world. "Our Father in heaven, hallowed by Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10).
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EVENING PRAYER

Glean the Word: Hebrews 11:8-19

Fruit of Repentance: "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." (v. 8)

Evening prayer focus: The righteous will live by faith (click on the image below for our evening prayer).

"So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised. For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay. But My righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him." But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved." (Hebrews 10:35-39).

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