Today’s Daily Light

Continuing…The Search For Significance…by R. McGee

The Agent of Change

Our redemption was made complete at Calvary.  When Jesus lifted up His eyes and cried, “It is finished!”  (John 19:30), He told us that the provision for man’s reconciliation with God was complete.  Nothing more need be done, because the Word of life had been spoken to all mankind.  Man needed only to hear the Word, accept it, and place his hope and trust in Christ.

But, if the redemption we enjoy is complete, why do we so often fail to see the changes we long for in our lives?  Why do we wrestle day after day with the same temptations, the same failings, and the same distractions we have always fought?  Why can’t we break free and move on toward maturity?  

Christ illustrated the reasons for our lack of fruitfulness in the parable of the sower in Mark 4:3-20.  In agriculture, productivity depends on the fertility of the soil, the climate, and the presence or absence of weeds.  The reasons Christ gave for lack of fruit in the believer’s life were Satan’s taking away the Word of God, persecution, and the worries of the world.  For most of us, the worries of the world are the primary culprit for our lack of growth.  Jesus described it this way:

And others are the ones on who seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the Word, and the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the Word, and it becomes unfruitful.  (Mark 4:18-19)

In the context of honesty, affirmation, and patience, we can focus on the forgiveness we have received and reject the deception and worldly desires that choke out the Word of life.  We need to base our lives on God’s Word and allow His character to be reproduced within us by the power of His Spirit:

And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the Word and accept it, and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.  (Mark 4:20)

Father…I pray that you will transform us into ‘good’ soil…from the inside out….through the work of Your Spirit…’so that’ we will bear eternal fruit.  Amen