Archives - January 2008, Part 3, from www.timewithgod.blog-city.com

timewithgod.blog-city.com — January 2008

Matthew 13:1-23 Understanding Through OBEDIENCE

God really spoke to me today about those who don't get it.  There were certain sentences that jumped right off the pages both in my Bible and my commentary that revealed important truths about bringing God's will about in my own life.We

God really spoke to me today about those who don't get it.  There were certain sentences that jumped right off the pages both in my Bible and my commentary that revealed important truths about bringing God's will about in my own life.

We just finished a Disciple Now, and it was pretty easy to see who God moved greatly in, who simply seemed to get an emotional high, and who walked away clueless to what just happened.  Why do some get it and others don't?  My commentary says it's not because they can't but because they won't.  Verse 15 says, "The minds of these people have become stubborn....They have closed their eyes..."

I think there are differing degrees of this stubbornness.  Some may very well resent being where they are, and though the words are spoken, their minds are not engaged.  The words never even register in their minds.

Others do hear it, and it even sounds good to them.  Yet they lack the willpower to obey them.  As verse 12 says, "They hear, but they don't really hear."  That's because they words may touch their intellects and their emotions, but they never touch their hears.  In their case, I think they know that what they are hearing is good for them to do, but it's just too much of a bother to implement it.  Other things take priority.  This is much like a smoker who knows what cigarettes are doing to him, yet he simply doesn't want to quit.

My commentary listed a very chilling thought about these people:  "Satan ... cooperates with them in their self-chosen barrenness."

The real danger of this is that when a person refuses to accept it and obey it enough times, God hardens his heart so that he will never understand it.  He will also very likely forget anything he has learned.  "Light rejected is light denied.  Willful blindness is followed by judicial blindness," my commentary said.

Here is the nugget of gold I found this morning:  "A true believer ... hears the word receptively and understand it through OBEYING what he hears," it says in my commentary.  Catch that last phrase -- we understand it, not instinctively, but by OBEYING it.

In other words, when we first obey the word, we may very well not understand why we should obey it.  But after obeying, God will use the circumstances of our obedience to lead us to understanding.  Then, as verse 15 says, when we really understand in our minds, we will come back to Christ AND BE HEALED. 

Understanding comes from obedience, which comes from hearing receptively.  We hear receptively when we determine that God is present and that each teachable moment is a divine appointment.  And we have to have the God-given willpower to say, "Though I may not understand why, yet I will obey, because I trust You, Lord."

Father, continue to do all of this in my life.  I'm still in a time right now where I listened and decided to obey even though I didn't really want to in my heart, and You are continuing to give me understanding through the very fact of my obedience, whether I wanted to or not.  Thanks for showing this to me!

Your Brother In Christ,
Gary Ford

Published: Thursday, 31 January 2008