January 8, 2024

Jesus wraps up His parable in Matthew 13 with a statement that is both an observation and a warning. On one hand, it’s easy enough to understand. If you truly listen to God’s Word and apply it to your life, you’ll grow in your understanding of God. You’ll also be filled with more of His Spirit, and therefore will open yourself for God to pour Himself into you. In other words, receive and use what He gives you, and God will give you more. Camp on that for a while because that is One Magnificent Promise.
But the second part of that statement isn’t just an observation. It’s a warning. If you don’t receive what God gives you, or don’t apply His Truth to your life, what little understanding you have will begin to fade away. Let me unpack that for you a bit. When you reject God’s Word, you harden your heart toward Him. That means your heart becomes less receptive to God’s Voice, and therefore you will miss more and more of what God is trying to say to you. I referred to this in an earlier part of the parable as the “Footpath Disease,” because your heart becomes as hard as beaten-down ground.
The other reason we start losing more of what God’s given us when we stop receiving and/or responding to His Word is that we start making up our own truth. This is where it becomes truly dangerous. Instead of receiving what God’s Word or Spirit is saying, we twist it. We give it our own spin. We bend it to justify what we want to do. Instead of letting God’s Word change us, we change it to fit us. God begins to become a “Big Buddy” in the sky, and we make Him say whatever we want to hear. God’s Word stops becoming final. Our opinion of what we think is right becomes our standard of measurement. This is why you can see so many people who claim to be Christians do things that are clearly in violation of God’s Word and be okay with it. They wouldn’t admit it, I’m sure, but what’s happened is that THEY have become their own god. Their ideas have more weight to them than God’s Word. That’s why when you have conversations with such folks, they’ll say things like, “Well, I think…” The problem is it doesn’t matter what YOU think! God has the final word, not us.
Twisting Scripture or giving it our own spin is just another way of rejecting God and His Truth. It’s exactly the trick Satan used when he deceived Adam and Eve. “Did God REALLY say…” Yes, He did. And when we accept and act on what He really said He gives us more. When we don’t…well, we start down a path where we can easily lose what little He may have already given us. Have ears to hear. Have a heart to receive. Have the obedience to respond. Jesus was pretty clear. Use it or lose it. That’s God’s Word for you today.