Chapter 12: SOWING GOD'S WORD
Part 13:
Recently, my daughter and her family visited our home. One afternoon she requested
that I go pick up some pizza for dinner. As I was leaving the house, I stopped to have
a conversation with another member of the family. That is when I heard the words, "Stay
focused, Daddy! Go get the pizza!"
How often we lose our focus when we are doing God's work! We have good intentions,
we begin the journey … and then we are distracted! We need to stay focused on the
important things! Jesus was on a mission. His work was to do the will of God and to
finish it.
Each one of us needs this same desire and goal. We must desire to finish the work God
has gifted us to do before we leave this world. We are on a mission: a mission to help
fulfill the Great Commission, as Jesus
commanded in Matthew 28: "Therefore go
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28: 19–20). The
only way that we will accomplish this great task is to stay focused on God's Word and let
it influence every situation we encounter.
Soaking our hearts in the Word of God is really only the first step to making it personally
operative in our lives. We need to soak in the words of Scripture so that we will havegreater and greater desire to have God's Word influence all areas of our lives, including
our converterlating.
After spending a lot of time in the Word, and spending time reflecting on it, I came upon
a verse that has become a favorite of mine: "My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I
recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer" (Psalm 45:1,
emphasis added). This verse helped me to develop the concept of sowing to the Spirit.
The Word of God is living and powerful, and it works in the life of the believer who
receives it. Our tongue is the pen of a skillful writer because we are reciting the Word of
God back to the one who inspired the writing in the first place. The activation process of
God's Word actually controlling our behavior is what I refer to as sowing to the Spirit.
You may have heard the saying, "You reap what you sow." This idiom means that there
is an effect for everything a person does
or says, and that the effort a person puts
into something will eventually be
rewarded appropriately in this life or the
next. The general idea behind "you reap
what you sow" is that actions have
consequences. The effects of a person's
behaviors are not necessarily apparent
right away, such as when a farmer has to
wait a while for a crop to mature;
nevertheless, they show up eventually.
We sow God's Word out of our hearts
and into the world. As Converterlators our goal is that all of those words would reap
eternal benefits!
Sowing to the Spirit of God begins with praising God, rejoicing in his marvelous
provision of salvation with expressions of gratitude. God loves and responds to these
expressions of faith: "Let the godly sing for joy to the Lord; it is fitting for the pure to
praise him. Praise the Lord with melodies on the lyre; make music for him on the ten-
stringed harp. Sing a new song of praise to him; play skillfully on the harp, and sing with
joy" (Psalm 33:1–3, NLT). "The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies
me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!" (Psalm 50:23,
ESV). What promises to claim for our personal lives! As we recite these verses we are
focused on God's power and purposes.praise him. Praise the Lord with melodies on the lyre; make music for him on the ten-
stringed harp. Sing a new song of praise to him; play skillfully on the harp, and sing with
joy" (Psalm 33:1–3, NLT). "The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies
me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!" (Psalm 50:23,
ESV). What promises to claim for our personal lives! As we recite these verses we are
focused on God's power and purposes
We often think of meditation as quiet reflection, and it is! But our sowing is directly
related to our meditation, because the sowing comes out of the meditation! We see the
principle of meditating on God's Word as we read of the birth of Jesus in Luke: "But
Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). Can you
imagine Mary's reaction when the shepherds told her about the supernatural events they
experienced when Jesus was born? We learn an important
lesson from Mary in this passage. She treasured up and
pondered these things in her heart. When we treasure things in
our heart, they are special and we think of them often. When
we ponder on things that we have been exposed to, we reflect upon their importance and
impact. These thoughts help us develop convictions that impact our behavior. Mary's life
was forever changed because of this.
The supernatural exposure to God's Word from the angels that the shepherds experienced
so impacted them that they were moved to go to Bethlehem to see this miracle for
themselves. Their lives were changed and Mary's faith was deepened.
The heart absorbs whatever it is soaking in, so a cursory reading of the Bible is not
enough. We must spend time with God's Word. We must treasure its content and ponder
what it is saying to us. Scripture is living and powerful; it impacts how we think, feel, and
act. Again, our sowing comes from our meditation. The two are intrinsically linked. Jesus
said, "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34, NKJV,
emphasis added).I find my own heart is stirred when I recite and pray my Spiritual M & M verses to the
King. When we do this we know we are praying in accordance with the will of God.
After all, it is his Word we are sowing back to him. And I have found that God responds
in a powerful way when I do this. As we pray these verses back to God, we begin to
experience what David did in his life:
The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart. He helps
me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.
—Psalm 28:7, NL
The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.
—Psalm 118:14, ESV
The prophet Isaiah also experienced God in a powerful way:
Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the
Lord GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.
With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
—Isaiah 12:2–3, ESV
But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar
on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and
not be faint.
—Isaiah 40:31
Jesus tells us his words are life. They shed light within, enlightening our heart,
strengthening our inner person, so the person of Jesus Christ can dwell in our heart. The
Apostle Paul wrote:
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one
another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with
thankfulness in your hearts to God.
—Colossians 3:16, ESV
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power
through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your
hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in
love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp
how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know
this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure
of all the fullness of God.
—Ephesians 3:16–19
In Jeremiah we read, "When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my
heart's delight, for I bear your name, Lord God Almighty" (Jeremiah 15:16). Here, we
see the mechanics for experiencing God in our lives. When the words of God came to
him, Jeremiah ate them. In other words, he internalized them by memorizing and
meditating on them (Spiritual M & Ms!). These words became his heart's delight! That is
why I like to say, "Read it, eat it, live it … and God will visit to perform his Word toward
you In the book of Psalms we read, "Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires
of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). As we delight in the Lord
and his Word, his desires will become our desires.
Our prayer life will come into harmony with his will.
We will see more answered prayer because we are
praying in conformance to his desires: "This is the confidence we have in approaching
God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he
hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him" (1 John
5:14–15).
The way we think, act, and talk all reflect what is in our hearts. What we nurture in our
hearts will govern our behavior. We need to stay focused on God's Word in order to be
filled with Christ and accomplish his purposes. When we sow God's Word, we will find
that our converterlating takes on new direction, meaning, and impact!
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