Dear GracePoint Family,
And Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Mark 4:26-29
The seed… a fascinating creation of God. The study of seeds is a subset of the discipline of botany called, carpology. What’s in a seed? Housed within a seed is the potential for life. The potential to reproduce life of the same kind as the plant that it came from. There is an old saying that goes like this: “Anybody can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the apples in a seed!” The point is clear that there are far too many variables or mitigating factors that are in play to accurately predict how fruitful one seed may or may not be. The factors like the environment, the atmosphere, or whether it will ever produce at all. In any event, it certainly must be “scattered” in some way to an environment conducive to its growth. In nature seeds are dispersed in one of four ways: 1) Wind, 2) Water, 3) by Animal, 4) Explosion. (Some plants have seeds housed in a pod that under pressure breaks open and “scatters” its seeds.)
In the above passage Jesus likens the Gospel to a seed. The seed, when scattered, begins to grow automatically (i.e. God driven) it just needs to be scattered. So how do we do that? I was reminded Sunday as we reported on the Morelia Mission Trip, seeds were indeed “scattered”, dispersed intentionally in a wide arc around Mission Vida Nueva. God will determine the long- term impact; we were just faithful to sow the seed. What about here? Should we not be about the business of scattering seeds in a widening arc around GracePoint? What are the ways we can do that? Are there four or five or countless? Regardless, I pray we will simply do it!
In His Grace,
Pastor Ben
And Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
Mark 4:26-29
The seed… a fascinating creation of God. The study of seeds is a subset of the discipline of botany called, carpology. What’s in a seed? Housed within a seed is the potential for life. The potential to reproduce life of the same kind as the plant that it came from. There is an old saying that goes like this: “Anybody can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the apples in a seed!” The point is clear that there are far too many variables or mitigating factors that are in play to accurately predict how fruitful one seed may or may not be. The factors like the environment, the atmosphere, or whether it will ever produce at all. In any event, it certainly must be “scattered” in some way to an environment conducive to its growth. In nature seeds are dispersed in one of four ways: 1) Wind, 2) Water, 3) by Animal, 4) Explosion. (Some plants have seeds housed in a pod that under pressure breaks open and “scatters” its seeds.)
In the above passage Jesus likens the Gospel to a seed. The seed, when scattered, begins to grow automatically (i.e. God driven) it just needs to be scattered. So how do we do that? I was reminded Sunday as we reported on the Morelia Mission Trip, seeds were indeed “scattered”, dispersed intentionally in a wide arc around Mission Vida Nueva. God will determine the long- term impact; we were just faithful to sow the seed. What about here? Should we not be about the business of scattering seeds in a widening arc around GracePoint? What are the ways we can do that? Are there four or five or countless? Regardless, I pray we will simply do it!
In His Grace,
Pastor Ben