Plant the seed
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Genesis 1:28
God has formed us, created us, made us, and fashioned us on purpose and with a purpose! He made you. As He told Jeremiah, He tells you, He already knew you even before He formed you. He carefully knitted you together with much thought and intent. All for His purpose and plan. You weren’t and are not a mistake! You are useful and to be fruitful.
I am convinced that a lot of people will never even partially meet their full potential. Some will never live out the good plan that God intended for them to live and walk in. Don’t let that be you. Most never live out the good life that Jesus came and died to give that John 10:10 talks about. Why? Because they believed a lie of the enemy, from early on they were deceived, or somewhere along the way they got deterred and detoured. Some may taste and see but few really live it out to know fully what it’s all about. God wants us to do more than just tap into, He wants us to live full and abundant lives that know and reflect Him. Not just to acquire stuff and say we have this and that but to fully work and walk out our purpose. Not just to know but to do and be. To be doers is what we were called to be. Not to just merely live out that dash which represents our in between. Beginning - end just existing, wandering and wondering yet never really experiencing.
So back to the main verse. God has blessed us and wants us to live blessed and fruitful lives. Bottom line: that requires knowing Him, knowing His commands and ways. Keeping and walking in them, and with Him. We are to constantly be listening and heeding each step of the way. We can’t live a contrary life to His way and expect to live a blessed life. He said He blessed them! Then what did He do, He told them to BE FRUITFUL and MULTIPLY. He didn’t say to want to be, He said to BE. Are we fruitful? We can’t just talk about it. Are we truly living out the days of our lives and bearing fruit according to His commands? Are we abiding In Him? We can’t bear fruit alone, we are just the branches! We will bear accordingly to what we abide in or nothing at all. The branch bears the fruit.
And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left. Isaiah 30:21We must follow to live blessed.
We are to fill and multiply here on earth, to make it better than we found it. It’s all for one bigger purpose. What we do on our little piece, or on our square here on earth, should be to make a difference and an impact! To do our due diligence. It’s our duty to multiply what HE HAS first given us to use. Born to increase. One little seed yields MULTIPLE plants ‘once it is actually planted.’ Until then it’s just a seed of potential that will not increase until it’s used. Just like faith, we can talk about it and say we have it all day long, but do we? No one knows until it’s used or forced to be. Do not wait, wish or waste your life away. The more you use faith, the more it will increase. Water it and it’ll grow, its called ‘faith to faith’. The same concept with that seed. Plant one squash seeds and many squash blossoms from that one seed on the same plant, just as mine and your lives should be increasing fruit of Whose and what’s inside of us.
How do we use our time, talent and tithe? I’ve heard this preached a couple of times and it’s true! How are we using and making the most of our time? Are we making the most of it? Do we use it wisely? We are our own time managers and yet we act as if we are a slave to man, at the mercies of our work and our to do’s or activities. He made us managers and if we gave someone or something else the power, we must take it back. Simply put, if we don’t have time, and we aren’t making time then our priorities are probably out of line. You don’t understand you say, no I don’t. But, I do know that He told us that in all of our ways if we will acknowledge HIM, then He can direct our paths. It takes balance. It isn’t always easy but He makes it possible. Not only that, but yours and my life depends on it.
The enemy knows this and he wants to blind and keep you busy from the truth. The enemy comes to distract, divide, deceive and to keep us busy. He comes to wear out the saints and keep us in chaos or burn out. Why? Because He doesn’t want us to overcome. We must submit first to God, His will and plan in order to resist the enemies attacks. I do know that.
YOU AND I WILL STAND BEFORE CHRIST AND GIVE AN ACCOUNT OF THE TIME WE KEPT and what activities we kept. Does time have us or do we utilize and manage rightly the time we were given as gifts? Time was given to us, God knew we’d need it in order to manage wisely. We must seek wisdom. See, managers give an account to their leaders at the end of the day or the job. And we too give an account to our God and Maker at the end of our life. The One Who should be leading us. Are we letting Him? Activities and to do’s aren’t bad unless they come before or do not please God. If there are things we have to do, we must do them with all our hearts and as unto Him or we don’t do them well.
What about your talent? Do you increase it? Do you use it? You must or it won’t increase itself! If you are using it, do you use it for His praise and glory or for the worlds recognition and praise? If you don’t use it, then it will be taken away. The man with one talent hid his out of fear! Fear is sin and the only way to defeat fear, is with our faith! Our talents are our investments! Do we use and invest or misuse and waste. Neglect is a form of abuse! Think about it. We can go around our whole lives living scared and waste it all and live with regret. That’s not really living. OR, we can live it out in faith and in-spite of fear. Fear is a liar! The man with that talent was called wicked and lazy, because he didn’t use it. God didn’t honor His excuse or his fear. He honors our faith. The other two men used their faith. Sure they probably had fears but their Master honored and recognized their faith, not their fears. And so, he increased to the talents doubly back. He increased ACCORDING to their faith. Faith isn’t the absence of fear, rather rising up against it. Your Master sees who you trust by what you do, not by what you say or feel. They were faithful and so fruitful with what they had been given; it brought increase.
Last but not least. The Bible clearly tells us as plain as 1+1=2, (the world would try to twist and contort the truth), WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS, (key, hint hint) RIGHT THERE IS WHERE YOU’LL FIND YOUR HEART TOO. Where do you Invest or waste most of your time, talent and money? Where do you spend most of your time and what do you do most? Where does your mind stay? As the man thinks so he is. Do you spend most of your tine thinking about what you do have, want, or maybe even don’t have. Then it owns you. Is money your treasure and god, or is all you can see or is your lack? Either way, your focus is not God. Are you married to work or are you fully dedicated to God; your home, your work and your activities in that order? Does things have you or do you have things? Are you at the mercy of your own schedule or someone else’s? Get out of the way and let God lead. In all you do acknowledge Him, see what He would think. Not only will He will show you the way , He will make a way through or out of that very sea of impossibility that you face. God will reward your stepping in faith. Obedience is key. We must get our hearts in the right place in order for our treasure to be.
So again He’s called us to increase and it won’t happen in our comfort zone. It’s out there in the great unknown. But, if we aren’t using our T’s and wisely, then we can guarantee that we won’t bear fruit or rightly. And if we use it but all to the wrong, we can guarantee we will produce bad, bitter, and rotten fruit. Not everlasting fruit. Fruit is to nourish. Fruit is a sign of what you abide in. Fruit is good. Jesus don’t just want to see the talk. He wants to see the walk; your faith! He’s called us to so much more! Passing by a fig tree one day, He withered it simply because it did not bear fruit. He did it so we might know that we were also called to be fruitful. To show us that our walk matters... The tree bore leaves, which spoke of its potential and talk, but it bore no fruit. So what good was it to nourishing? None.
He loves us and calls us blessed because He made us. He gifted us with good gifts. He planted seeds of greatness inside of each of us. He commanded that we go out, and BE fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. BE ye doers of the words and not just hearers only or we just deceive our own selves. We are called for good works so we have a job to do. Not to live deceived and think we are ok. We can’t just talk about our faith and expect to live blessed. We are to be producers!!!! We are to live it and walk it out. We can’t multiply what we don’t use. We all have seeds of potential living inside of us, He planted and put them there. What we do with them is up to us.
What do we do to cause these seeds to grow and flourish, to feed our own and the faith of others?? It matters. It all matters, everything we do AND don’t do. That’s what it’s all about, our walk with God. If we aren’t pleasing and living for Him, then what are we doing? Times a wastin’ or times being invested. Either way we spend. Don’t live spent. Live invested.
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.
Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12-14
We must keep pressing and forgetting. Today is all we have. Worrying about tomorrow or reliving and trying to change yesterday won’t get us to where we want to go. It’ll only cause us to live spent instead of invested and fruitful. Life is too precious and short to waste it. Don’t keep living in the sorrow and regret that the enemy wants to keep you stuck in, it’s a lie. Live and walk in the very truth that sets you free that He comes to give you. There is now no condemnation to those who believe. That’ll keep you bogged down in the mud. (John 3:16-18) No matter what age or stage, it’s not to late to turn around and forget and press towards the goal and prize HE has set for YOU. You have untapped seeds of potential inside of you. Make them a reality today.
My dad always says, “you can’t sell off an empty cart.” We all have something to sell. Start with what you do have or don’t expect what you don’t. It all starts here, its’ with-in you. We all have seeds but we must not be afraid to use them. Someones waiting on what you have. The only way to overcome the fear is to do it. Dive all in or stay on the shore watching everyone else live there lives out there. Chances are, if you put your foot in, you’ll not go or end up hurt. That’s reasoning and requires no faith. No in-between. Choose one side of the fence.
That’s how we subdue it and overcome it. We were made for so much more. Made to flourish. Go multiply what you’ve been given. Start here. Start now. Start with what you do have. It’s a partnership. I use what I trust He’s given. My faith activates His part that He’s already done. He’s waiting on me. It’s not by my own might or power but by His Spirit at work in me. Use the seed. He will provide the increase. It’s our faith in Him, not of ourselves. Stop living in fear. Use your faith.
Another glass of whiskey but it still don't kill the pain
So he stumbles to the sink and pours it down the drain
He said it's time to be a man and stop living for yesterday
Gotta face it
'Cause I don't wanna spend my life jaded
Waiting to wake up one day and find
That I let all these years go by
Wasted
Oh, I don't wanna keep on wishing, missing
The still of the morning, the color of the night
I ain't spending no more time
”Wasted” - Carrie Underwood
We must stop looking at what we can’t and what distracts us and start looking to Him, the Author, Perfecter and Finisher of our faith. We must not let what distracts us, destroy us. We have a crown to win. Whatever we use to numb the pain, we must face it and use our faith. ALL in Him.
“God, I want to be fruitful and increase, It’s all in You Jesus. Amen.”
