Growing & Multiplying

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Continuing from last week, with proper care, seeds will grow, flower, fruit and seed again, which multiplies the harvest to come. Likewise, the word of God when properly tended by the person whose heart is the "good soil" will grow in relationship with God in His three persons–Father, Holy Spirit and Son (Jesus). The relationship that grows and deepens will bear fruit in the person's life and activate the person into spreading the Good News of the Gospel, bearing fruit and yields in multiples.

As mentioned before, proper tending of the word of God leads to the seed of a relationship with God that grows and deepens in intimacy where you learn who God is, who you are to Him and what purpose and plans He has for you. These can be done through studying the Bible, being in community with other believers, praying, worshiping, praising, interceding, fasting, taking time to listen to God speaking, and becoming more like Jesus in word and deed.

Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.…As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.

-Matthew 13:8, 23 (ESV)

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From growing to multiplying, plants will flower, fruit and seed at different times. This is also true of those that grow the word of God in the heart's "good soil". The "fruit and yields" of men growing in the word of God comes from obedience to God in executing the "Great Commission". The Great Commission involves two areas:

1. Salvation of unbelievers through "Go[ing] into all the world and proclaim[ing] the gospel to the whole creation," as explained in Mark 16:15-20 (ESV); and

2. Discipling new believers as set forth by Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV), as he commands in verse 19-20:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

From these two areas, the fruits and yields in various multiples can and will be seen.

Where are you in your relationship with Almighty God? Growing? Multiplying? Both? Where are you at in your work of the "Great Commission"? Compare and contrast salvation and discipling?