Might as well not waste time. Might as well get some of you upset with me right from the start. That healing you keep begging God for, that provision you keep railing God about, that relationship you keep waiting for God to fix is not God’s to do. Let’s start with Mark 4:26-34 and prove that statement. Here it is in the NLT.
26 Jesus also said, “The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground.
Okay. Right from the “get-go”. Who scattered the seed? Not God….the farmer did.
27 Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens.
The part of this verse that stands out to me is where it says “but he does not understand how it happens”. Sometimes we have to give up our right to understand. Someone was praying for you to get saved. Someone witnessed to you about Jesus. How that turned into your conversion is a mystery.
I remember a couple we knew who were having marital problems. We would see them in church sitting apart from each other and the message would be about love. We’d think, “boy that’ll get ’em. They’ll hit the altar and repent on that message”. NOTHING. Next Sunday it would be on forgiveness. “Oh yeah. That’ll get ’em”. NOTHING. One Sunday the message was on tithing. I won't make any comments about tithing now. If you keep reading these blogs, I will have one dedicated to tithing in the near future and the truth about it. Nevertheless, on that particular Sunday, the woman hit the altars crying her eyes out and weeping almost uncontrollably. What was it about that message that brought her to repentance. Or was it that seed that had been planted weeks before simply producing a harvest on that particular day?
28 The earth produces the crops on its own. First a leaf blade pushes through, then the heads of wheat are formed, and finally the grain ripens.
Now look at what the beginning of this verse says. What produces the crops? The earth on its own. Wait. God doesn’t have to do it? Nope. It’s not God’s to do. He’s given the ground. He’s provided the seed (2 Corinthians 9:10).
29 And as soon as the grain is ready, the farmer comes and harvests it with a sickle, for the harvest time has come.”
30Jesus said, “How can I describe the Kingdom of God? What story should I use to illustrate it?
31 It is like a mustard seed planted in the ground. It is the smallest of all seeds,
32 but it becomes the largest of all garden plants; it grows long branches, and birds can make nests in its shade.”
33 Jesus used many similar stories and illustrations to teach the people as much as they could understand.
34 In fact, in his public ministry he never taught without using parables; but afterward, when he was alone with his disciples, he explained everything to them.
With that backdrop, let me just say religious people would choke on what I’m about to say, because it’s so out of mainstream from what people have been taught. Don’t miss the truth of what I’m saying.
It is not God’s part or place to, heal you, provide financial blessings, or bless you emotionally. What are you saying??? God’s already done his part. He’s already provided everything you’ll ever need. He’s already completed the work. He’s got the ground prepared and provided for the seed, and He even provides the seed. Glory!! God has a store house of blessings just waiting for YOU to release by faith.
When you got born again and filled with Holy Ghost, God placed inside you “raising from the dead power”. You don’t need God to send it forth. It’s already within you. The problem is, most of God’s kids don’t know how to release it. How to take advantage of the power that is within them.
But how do we release it? You release it by taking God’s word and plant it in your heart (seed). God’s Word is the seed. We’ve got all this power. We’re like spiritual nuclear bombs, but we lie dormant. All this power is within us, but it needs a trigger to release it. It needs a seed to release it. That seed comes in the form of faith, and faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17). So the seed is the Word of God.
The soil is your heart. It has all the nutrients (power) to produce a harvest (results), but we must plant a seed (word)(faith) and let it germinate. It may take time as seen in Mark 4:26-28. The raising from the dead power in you is activated by the seed.
Some of you are saying this isn’t right. It’s not what I was taught. It’s not the way I’ve always been told to do it. Well that’s obvious. Just look at the results.
Let’s look at Acts 3:1-6 (ERV)
1 “One day Peter and John went to the Temple area. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, which was the time for the daily Temple prayer service.
2 As they were entering the Temple area, a man was there who had been crippled all his life. He was being carried by some friends who brought him to the Temple every day. They put him by one of the gates outside the Temple. It was called Beautiful Gate. There he begged for money from the people going to the Temple.
3 That day he saw Peter and John going into the Temple area. He asked them for money.
This reminds me of the woman at the well. Peter and John are fresh from the upper room where they have received power from the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). If this beggar would have known the power in front of him, he wouldn’t ask for money. It’s like Jesus told the woman at the well, “You don’t know what God can give you. And you don’t know who I am, the one who asked you for a drink. If you knew, you would have asked me, and I would have given you living water.”
4 Peter and John looked at the crippled man and said, “Look at us!”
5 He looked at them; he thought they would give him some money.
I can almost see and hear Peter at this point looking toward John and saying – “Hey John. Let’s take this Holy Ghost thing out for a ride and see what He can do”.
6 But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold, but I do have something else I can give you. By the power of Jesus Christ from Nazareth—stand up and walk!”
Now if you keep reading the story, you see that the man got up and leaped and jumped and praised God. Just look at the “He” references here. I underlined them.
7 Then Peter took the man’s right hand and lifted him up. Immediately his feet and legs became strong.
8 He jumped up, stood on his feet, and began to walk. (It was the man that did this, not God or Peter or John). He went into the Temple area with them. He was walking and jumping and praising God.
As you read on you see that it says they saw this man walking. What’s the point? It was not God’s to do. God had already provided all that Peter and John would need by the Holy Spirit in the upper room. The nuclear spiritual power in Peter and John was released by the seed, and the man acted upon it by faith.
You see, the man asked…that’s faith. He asked for the wrong thing, but he asked from the right place and he asked the right people. Peter and John didn’t pray and ask God to heal this man. They didn’t beg God to have mercy on the man. They simply said, let’s light this fuse and watch the fireworks. We’ve got this power in us, so let’s release it by the Word of God.
Unfortunately today, many believe they have to be beggars and achievers rather than releasers and receivers. We think we have to say something spiritual like “if it be God’s will”. Peter and John didn’t say that, they said “we don’t have anything to give you except what we have in us. Get up!! They knew it was God's will that all be healed and they knew that God had given them the power to release the manifestation of that healing.
They said “such as I have………” What was it they had? They had power. Power that was given them. Power that was put inside them, because it was finished at the cross and provided to them fully. Just as it is to all who believe. You notice how obvious it is that this was not their innate human power. They weren’t saying in themselves they were God. They were saying that the power they were already granted by God was theirs to utilize.
Even Jesus made this clear in John 5:19 when He said He could do nothing of Himself except what He saw the Father do. Then He made it clear that we are in the same situation. In John 15:5 He said that without Him we could do nothing. We will get into this more in part 2. Don't miss it. Grace and Peace.
