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So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.—1 Corinthians 3:71
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Winning people to Jesus is like farming: We plant little seeds of truth in the earth of people’s hearts, and the great warm sunshine of His love and the water of His Word will cause some of those seeds to burst forth in the miracle of new life.
Of course, we hope to win many others to faith in Christ, but that’s really God’s job and the work of the Holy Spirit. We can only give people the truth and show them the Lord’s love; we can’t force results or make the decision for them. Whether or not they choose to believe and receive and follow that truth is between each individual and God.
One person sows the seed, another may water it, but it is God that gives the increase.2We can only try to prepare the ground, soften it with our prayers, and sow the seed. It’s up to the individual to receive it, and only God can make it take root and grow and produce fruit.
Our job is simply to go forth bearing precious seed and to plant it in fertile, fruitful, receptive hearts. We may not always see the harvest ourselves, but as long as we have faithfully done our part, we can leave the rest up to God.—David Brandt Berg3
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When witnessing you need to remember that a lot of people who didn't receive Jesus with you will receive Him later—you've just planted some seeds. You can't expect to plant the seed and have the plant grow up to full bloom and be in blossom right then and there while you're talking to them. If the seed hasn't been planted before, it may need some time to be watered, to grow and then to be harvested. Maybe in some people the seed has already been planted, and when you come along, you water it, but it's still not quite ready yet. So who knows? It may be a while, but they may yet receive the Lord. So don’t jump to conclusions on what the result of your witnessing will be just because someone is not ready at that moment to be saved. Witnessing is never wasted!—Maria Fontaine4
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A sermon is vain talk and dreary word-spinning unless the Holy Spirit enlivens it. … When the good Seed is sown, the whole success of it rests with God. If He withholds the dew and the rain, the Seed will never rise from the ground—and unless He shall shine upon it, the green ear will never ripen. … The human heart will remain barren, even though Paul himself should preach, unless God the Holy Spirit shall work with Paul and bless the Word to those who hear it.
Brothers, you know it is so in natural things—the most skillful farmer cannot make the wheat germinate, grow, and ripen. He cannot even preserve a single field till harvest time, for the farmer’s enemies are many and mighty. In farming there’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip, and when the farmer thinks he shall reap his crop, often there are blights and mildews lingering about to rob him of his gains. God must give the increase. If any man is dependent on God, it is the farmer, and as he, we are, all of us, dependent upon God from year to year for the food by which we live. Even the king must live by the increase of the field.
God gives the increase in the barn and the hayrack—and in the spiritual farm it is even more so, for what can man do in this business? If any of you think that it is an easy thing to win a soul, I would like you to try. Suppose that without Divine aid you should try to save a soul—you might as well attempt to make a world! Why, you cannot create a fly! How can you create a new heart and a right spirit? Regeneration is a great mystery—it is out of your reach. “The wind blows where it will and you hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell from where it comes, and where it goes: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.”5
What can you and I do in this matter? It is out of our pale and beyond our line. We can tell out the Truth of God, but to apply that Truth to the heart and conscience is quite another thing. I have stood here and preached Jesus Christ—preached my whole heart out—and yet I know that I have never produced any saving effect upon a single unregenerate man unless the Spirit of God has taken the Truth of God and opened the heart and placed the living Seed within it!
“I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.”6 Frequently brethren say in their prayers, “A Paul may plant, an Apollos may water, but it is all in vain unless God gives the increase.” This is quite true, but another Truth of God is too much overlooked, namely, that when Paul plants and Apollos waters, God does give the increase! We do not labor in vain! There would be no increase without God, but then we are not without God!—C. H. Spurgeon7
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[A] shift that Jesus invites us to make is from producing to growing. A producer puts parts together and makes something new happen. You produce a veggie lasagna from cheese, asparagus, tomato sauce, and pasta. Throw in some eggplant if you like. You produce a BMW from auto parts. But everything you produce is already dead. It’s just a thing. One day it will get old and rot or rust and waste away.
Compare a producer to a grower. A grower stands in his garden. He leans over growing things to tend them with water and fertilizer and loving care. He watches with pleasure and expectation as his plants accomplish the one thing he can’t make happen. They grow.
The kingdom of Jesus is alive and growing, but not because we make it grow. We plant seeds of life. We water and weed. We sweat and hope and pray. But the dynamic of life in the garden is the kingdom at work. It is the life of God springing up around us.—Rick McKinley8
Published on Anchor August 2013. Read by Gabriel Garcia Valdivieso.
Music by Daniel Sozzi.
1 NIV.
2 1 Corinthians 3:6.
3 Daily Might (Aurora Production, 2004).
4 Originally given April 1992.
5 John 3:8.
6 1 Corinthians 3:6.
7 From http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols25-27/chs1602.pdf.
8 This Beautiful Mess (Multnomah Books, 2006).
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