Producing Gods Harvest

Ephesians 3:14-19, Luke 8:11-15

The Word of God is full of promises to us. Promises of health, restoration, protection, prosperity, and victory. Why is it then, that sometimes we see the promise of God manifest in our lives and sometimes we don’t?

The first thing we have to establish is that Gods Word is true. It is impossible for God to lie. So, if Gods Word says your healed, your healed. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances say, what the doctors say, what the news says, or what your family says. Gods Word is true.

In Ephesians 3, Paul is praying for the Church. Whenever the Spirit of God inspires Paul to pray for the Church, we better listen. What is being prayed is a vital truth that the Church needs to operate in to be effective. Paul prays that we, the body of Christ, becomes rooted and grounded in love.

This love is not talking about an emotion or a feeling. Its talking about the Law of Christ, the new covenant with God, which is based on love. Because of Gods love for us, he set us free from the punishment of sin through Jesus Christ. Because of our love for God we do whatsoever he asks of us. Because of the grace and mercy that God has shown us, we show grace and mercy towards others. God wants us rooted and grounded in this love.

All of Gods blessings can be found in this love. This is why Paul prays that we be rooted in it. Rooted means that we don’t move from it. No matter what the circumstance, no matter how someone treats us, no matter how we feel, we do not move from Gods love. To be grounded in his love means that his love is the foundation for all we do. Every decision we make, we bring to God first and see what he has to say about it, because he is the foundation for all we do. Every action we take we want to make sure that we are in line with Gods Word because we love him, and we love him because he first loved us.

If we stay rooted and grounded in Gods love, then we will know the love of Christ which passes knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). Knowing something and having knowledge of something are two different things. Knowing means to experience it first hand, where as knowledge means just to have intellectual facts about a subject. Many of us have knowledge of Gods Word, meaning that we remember what the Bible says, we can tell you where its at, and what it means. But when we know his Word, or experience it, it means that we have seen it work in our lives.

I can read a magazine about a celebrity and gain knowledge about them. I can find out what their favorite food is, where they like to go on vacation, where they shop, and what their next movie is going to be shot. But, I don’t know that celebrity, I only have knowledge of them. To know that celebrity I would have to be with them, experience them, go places with them, and see how they act in situations. Many of us have knowledge of God but barely know him.

The reason we don’t experience Gods promises manifesting in our lives is because we are not rooted and grounded in his love, or his way of doing things. What we like to do is keep one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom and try to get the best of both worlds. We want to continue living our life however we please, then we pray for God to clean up the mess. When he doesn’t clean up our mess, we get frustrated and wonder why the Word isn’t working in our lives. Its because we are rooted and grounded in this world and its way of doing things, and not in God and his love.

One area I see this often is in finances. We buy whatever our hearts desire and spend money we don’t have. Everyone else has a flat screen TV, so we want a flat screen TV. We don’t have the money for it so we put it on our credit card. Now, we have so much money on our credit card where all we can make is the monthly minimum payment. So, we ask God to provide supernatural finances for us, however we never change our spending habits. If we want God to bless our finances, we have to be obedient with our finances. Its as simple as that. We want to be in this word and get everything our flesh desires, but we also want to reap the benefits of God and have him clear up our financial mistakes.

Another area I see this is health. If we are eating all the junk food we want and never exercising, we shouldn't be surprised when we start having a health condition. Then, as we drink our 3rd soda for the day with a fistful of cookies we tell someone that, “I’m believing for God to fix my health problem!” Our diet is what got us in this mess. If we want to receive Gods best, we need to submit our flesh under his command so he can bless it.

It comes down to our heart. If our heart hasn’t changed about the matter than God can never manifest his promise. We can tell what our heart believes by what we say and do.  If we are still eating and spending uncontrollably, then it shows a deeper spiritual issue, which is “This area of my life is not rooted and grounded in Gods love.”

In the parable of the sower (Luke 8), Gods Word was sown into four different types of ground. Only one ground produced a harvest.  Gods Word was the same in all four examples, the only difference was the type of ground the Word went into. Our heart is the ground. God is only limited by our belief. We may be able to fool others, but God truly knows what our heart is about a situation. Unless we submit these areas we want to see God move over to God, we wont be able to produce that harvest in our lives that we need.

The good news is this, we can change our hearts right now. We can choose today to be rooted and grounded in his love and start to experience his best, his fullness, his greatness, his overflow in any area in our life. If you have been standing in faith for something and it still has not yet manifested, check your heart. Make sure that your thoughts, feelings, and actions are fully submitted to God in that area.