How do you know if Christ is your desire? At the beginning of this series we looked at how and why God is so interested in the heart. Our heart is responsible for deciding what is most important to us. Whatever is most important to us becomes the object of our worship. We mould our lives around it, we talk about it, write about it, listen to it, play with it, learn from it and do everything we can to see to manifest it in our lives.

Whatever we worship satisfies us. That’s why we worship it! We would never worship something or someone who does not satisfy us.

To make Christ your desire simply means to find your satisfaction in Him. In other words, in your relationship with Jesus you are completely happy and you find joy in Him. This means that YOU GET everything you need to be satisfied in life, from God.

It does not mean giving everything up and trying to live as best as you possibly can. Doing everything you can to serve in the church, pray every morning and read your bible. It means that YOU GET everything you desire that makes you satisfied from God. Does this sound selfish? YES! We has human beings are driven by our desires. What we want and makes us satisfied!!

Seeking to be satisfied in God means to pursue God. To make His will our will, to let Him and His will become the very thing that brings us joy. Our joy needs to come from Him. Our ‘wants’ need to be directed by Him.

To have joy as a Christian is not optional. Without joy we cannot worship because we worship what brings us joy. No one worships what does not bring us joy!

The chorus ‘As the deer pants for the water oh my soul longs for you…’ has profound wisdom. What does the deer do for the stream? Nothing!! It does not serve it, it does not help it, make it better. It simply drinks from it and it is satisfied and renewed. (Excerpt from John Piper sermon)

Come to God to gain satisfaction like the deer pants for the water. Drink enthusiastically so that your can satisfy your thirst. God wants to satisfy your hunger and thirst he says so in the beatitudes:

Matthew 5: 6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Related Posts

1. Worship follows complete satisfaction in Christ
2. ‘for me, to live is Christ’
3. A Call to Worship

Today we’re going to start looking at the parable of the sower, this is found in Matthew 13v1→9 with the explanation in 13v18→23, it’s also found in Mark 4v1→20, and Luke 8v4→15. We’ll be spending out time looking at Matthews gospel. For those who are not familiar with the parable of the sower, here is a quick run down of what its about (it’s obviously better if you go read the scriptures though). A farmer goes out to sow seed, and as he scatters the seed it falls on different types of soils (hard, rocky, thorny, and good soil). Each of these different soils produce a different crop from the same seed.

Here is the clue to understanding this parable; the farmer is the person who tells others the Gospel, the seed is the Gospel message, and the soils are different people that hear the message. This is a super important parable, because Jesus tells us (in Mark 4v13) that it is vital that we understand this parable if we want to understand any other of Jesus’ parables.  So let’s dig in!

There are two ways that you can read any parable of Jesus, either you read it as a “them” or you read it as a “me”. What i mean by this is that when we have a look at the parable of the sower we can either see the different soils as “…those other people out there who don’t want to receive the Gospel.” Or you can read it and ask yourself the question; “Which soil am I?” obviously there is a place for us to apply this parable to those outside of the Christ who have heard the Gospel, but i think that Jesus’ primary intention was that we would first apply it to ourselves. So that’s what i hope that we do as we spend the next few weeks having a look at the different soils within this parable.

The big question that you must ask yourself is this; “In what way am I like this soil?” This will require you to be honest with yourself, and to take a long hard look at where you are at spiritually. However, it is my prayer that through this parable, Jesus would meet us where we are at and begin to take us to where He wants us to be. Over the next few days, take some time out to read through the whole parable of the sower, maybe even try read through it in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Then next week we’re going to begin looking at the first type of soil.

Related Posts

1. Parable of the Sower – The Hard Soil
2. Parable of the Sower – The Good Soil
3. Parable of the Sower – The Thorny Soil