How Is Your Heart?

Thistlebend Quiet eMoment

by Laurie Aker

Focus Scripture: Luke 8:4-15 ESV

4 And when a great crowd was gathering and people  
from town after town came to him, he said in a parable,  
5 “A sower went out to sow his seed.  
And as he sowed, some fell along the path  
and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it.  
6 And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up,  
it withered away, because it had no moisture.
7 And some fell among thorns,  
and the thorns grew up with it and choked it.
8 And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.”  
As he said these things, he called out,  
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
9 And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant,
10 he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets  
of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables,  
so that ‘seeing they may not see,  
and hearing they may not understand.’  
11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.  
12 The ones along the path are those who have heard;  
then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts,  
so that they may not believe and be saved. 
13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word,  
receive it with joy. But these have no root;  
they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.  
14 And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear,  
but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares  
and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.  
15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who,  
hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart,  
and bear fruit with patience.
_______________________________

Jesus continued on through the villages,
proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God.
People from town after town came to Him.
When he saw the large crowd He told them a parable.

Many were following Jesus.
Out of those who would listen
there were four different kinds of hearts:

Some fell along the path.

And some fell on the rock.

And some fell among thorns.

And some fell into good soil
and grew and yielded a hundredfold.

Jesus then called out to all of them saying:
“He who has ears to hear let him hear” (Luke 8:8).

Only those with one type of heart could truly hear.
Clearly there are those who don’t listen at all.
But of those who would listen, few would truly hear.

TAKING GOD’S WORD TO HEART

J. C. Ryle comments on this parable:
“It is a parable of universal application.
The things it relates are continually going on
in every congregation wherever the Gospel is preached.
…These factors should make us read the parable very carefully.
We should say to ourselves, as we read it,
‘This concerns me. My heart is seen in this parable.
I, too, am here.'”

Our heart is represented in one of these.
Ask the Lord this week to help you see
the condition of your heart.

MEDITATE or MEMORIZE

Write out the following verse from Luke 8 and recite it 3 times.
Take it with you throughout the day.

15 As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word,
hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.

PRAYER

Lord God, give me a heart that receives your Word
and produces much fruit.

In His hands for His glory,

Laurie
_______________________________

/by

New Beginnings

by Susan Sampson

After having been somewhat home bound the last couple of weeks, it was such a blessing to begin a new study and see all of you!  As I was praying the Lord blessed me with such a sweet picture of the body of Christ.  We are a family, sisters in Christ.  All the sisters gathering together each week to sit at their Father’s feet looking expectantly to hear from Him!

Maybe this is your first Thistlebend discipleship study, maybe your 10th!  Regardless, each of us is here by God’s grace for such a time as this.  Paul tells us in Ephesians 1:4 that the Lord “chose us in him before the foundation of the world.”  In chapter 2 verse 13 he instructs us that we once were far off, but now have been “brought near by the blood of Christ.”  In the beginning of chapter 2 he explains the truth that we used to be “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3).

“BUT God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved…” (Eph. 2:4-5).  

In Colossians the Word powerfully says, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13-14). 

The Lord saved us from the pit of destruction.  We were running our hell bound race and He reached out and rescued us!  “In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Eph. 1:5).

We are now His people, His daughters, His ambassadors, His disciples.

We have been given such a gift in this study.  A new beginning.  A time to become “conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29).  What are we going to do with this gift?  This gift of love?  What will we do in response to the Lord drawing us closer to Himself?  The flesh is going to want to resist!  Father, please give us ears to hear your voice and hearts to know your love and submit to your Word and put our flesh to death!

Lord, may your words during this study be as “frontlets between [our] eyes” (Deut 6:8) every day.  Enable us to take your truth to our hearts and humbly follow our great Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ!

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing” (Zeph. 3:17).  Father God, would you please quiet us by your love.  Enable us to turn from leaning on our own understanding and following our own desires and opinions and feelings and quietly follow you, our loving Father.

“Jesus paid it all.  All to Him I owe.  Sin had left a crimson stain.  He washed it white as snow.”

May we join together as sisters in Christ and humbly ask the Lord to do a mighty work this semester in our hearts that only He can do.  And may we humbly trust Him by grace through faith, looking to Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2, NIV) for He alone has loved us with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3).

 

/by

Reaching the “Converted”

by Bob Johnson

Some of our most obvious evangelistic opportunities are with the people who are members of our churches. You already have a relationship with them. You already have the advantage of consistently telling them the gospel. You also have some God-ordained opportunities to personally point them to Christ.

Paul warned the elders of the church at Ephesus that fierce wolves would come in among them and seek to do great damage to the flock (Acts 20:29). Christ warned several of the churches in Revelation 2-3 that they had unbelievers in their number. If these churches had unbelievers in them, we probably have some in ours too. But, how do we reach them?

HOW TO REACH UNCONVERTED MEMBERS

I am assuming that you are faithfully preaching the gospel and pointing your people to Christ. The effect of faithful gospel preaching is like napalm: it has a way of wiping out everything else. But, in order to conquer, you still need to ground troops. So, while you are joyfully preaching Christ, pursue these steps as well.

1. Pray about the conversions of your church members.

First, pray about the conversions of your church members. Pray that God would distinguish the posers from the possessors. Most of you, I would assume, publicly pray at the beginning and conclusion of your preaching. These are wonderful opportunities to pray about this critical matter—that people would not rely on their membership as giving them a right status before God, but that all would be truly repentant and trusting in Christ.

2. Preach about the conversion of your church members.

Second, preach about the conversion of your church members. If you are preaching expositionally, you can’t preach too many sermons before you run into the issue of false conversions. In your preaching, illustrate the point with stories from your own church family.

When someone gets baptized, we give them the opportunity to explain the gospel and how they came to faith in Christ. Last month, David told our church family how he had pretended for years to be a believer. His story is a great example that I refer to often.

3. Be aware of this in counseling.

Third, be aware of this in counseling. Devin (not his real name) and his wife met with me for some marriage counseling. Devin was not all that interested since, as he eventually revealed, he thought he had found someone else. One Sunday, I stopped him after the service and told him that if continued down that road, he needed to know that he could no longer confidently claim to be a follower of Christ. In fact, his determination to pursue this adulterous relationship may be an indication that he had never become a genuine follower of Christ.

Devin did not repent, but Greg (not his real name) did. Greg met a girl on a business trip and was ready to leave his wife and kids over her. I sat at his kitchen table one night and asked him what would it be, Christ or the girl, because he could not have both. Although Greg had professed faith and joined the church many years before, his life had demonstrated very little gospel fruit. Greg bowed the knee of his heart to Christ and by the grace of God, he was not only redeemed, but his marriage was rescued.

4. Be aware of this in hospital visits and other life and death situations.

Fourth, be aware of this in hospital visits and other life and death situations. Chuck (his real name) was in the hospital. The doctor had just told him that there was nothing left that could be done for his heart. He had already outlived the expectations, but the end was near. Chuck was a successful businessman and had been involved in many Christian organizations. In previous churches he had served on boards and taught classes. Now he was dying and he was terrified.

Chuck carried around a secret that very few people knew. During World War II he flew bombing missions over Japan, dropping thousands of pounds upon that country. He knew that he had killed hundreds if not thousands of people. On his 24th mission, his plane was shot up pretty badly, but he was able to get it back to base. His co-pilot, however, died. Chuck was eligible to go home after his 25th mission, but he was so angry about the death of his co-pilot that he signed up for another 25 missions and then yet another 25 missions so that he could kill more Japanese. And he did. After 76 missions, he finally went back home.

On his way back to Michigan, he was at a base in California where he met some Japanese prisoners of war. Some of them were very kind and told him that they did not want the war. They just wanted to go back to their home as well. They showed him pictures of wives and children. Chuck’s anger turned to fear. He assumed that he had killed some of their wives and children. He began to realize that he had not only killed civilians, but he had signed up to do it.

Now, sixty years later, the reality of facing God revealed his deepest fear. He would die and be condemned to hell. Chuck finished his story, tucked his knees under his arms, turned away from me and stared at the wall. His frail body made even a hospital bed look big. Chuck had heard me preach the gospel for years. But that day it was obvious that while he thought it was true, it just wasn’t true for him. His case was different.

I sat silent and tried to imagine the weight of his guilt and then said, “Chuck, you are a big sinner, but Jesus is a bigger Savior than you are a sinner.” Chuck responded like he had been hit by lightning. He looked at me like he had heard this for the very first time. His eyes got big, his face was animated, and he said, “That’s it, isn’t it?! Jesus is a bigger Savior than I am a sinner.”

Chuck died two weeks later. The joy of his life in those last two weeks made it evident to everyone who visited him that his chains were broken. His heart was free.

Your members will let you in to some of their most private thoughts. You may discover that what they need is to believe in Christ—for the very first time.

Bob Johnson is the senior pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Roseville, Michigan.

 _________________

© 9Marks. Website: www.9Marks.org. Email: info@9marks.org. Toll Free: (888) 543-1030. This article on the 9Marks’ website may be accessed here.

/by