“Don’t forget to sow the seeds,” my husband called out to me as I left the house one Thursday morning. “Absolutely!” I responded. I was excited and encouraged by the abundance of seeds of truth I had with me. Soon, I would have more seeds from God’s Word to sow. I was on my way to meet a small group of women in my Branch who get together on Thursday mornings. We call ourselves the Wonderful Women Who Speak Winning Words. We enjoy studying the Word together and helping each other with those little projects that need extra hands.
We also enjoy taking a break at a local coffee shop where our lively discussions of God’s Word usually lead to an invitation to someone to come and see what God has in store for them. Sometimes as we sip on our favorite hot beverage, we enjoy listening to each other read out loud.
We have read sections of the Word, articles from The Way Magazine, and once we even read through the book Receiving the Holy Spirit Today over a year’s time. We all rejoiced greatly to be reminded that we have been given power for Christian service, power for Christian living, and power for effective witnessing. We learn so much from each other as we share scriptures that come to our minds to supplement what we are reading. We are refreshed, encouraged, and ready to sow more seeds of truth.
It is God’s Word that makes known His will for our lives and the benefits He has for us. God has always made an abundance of truth available. To receive the benefit of God’s Word in our own lives, it must first be sown in our own hearts. We can sow seeds of truth to ourselves by faithfully reading the Word, memorizing scriptures, and speaking the Word. Those who consistently sow God’s seeds of truth will reap rewards.
To have abundant seeds of truth to sow requires faithfully reading the Word. When I was about twelve years old, my cousin and I decided we would read the entire Bible. Our enthusiasm barely lasted through the Book of Genesis. We could read the words on the page and even look up some words in a dictionary, but with our limited understanding of what was written, our Bible reading was soon replaced by something we did understand—our comic books.
Thirteen years later, I renewed my desire to read the Bible. This time I was successful. Why? I was successful because someone taught me how to enjoy reading the Bible. In our ministry’s Foundational Class, I learned keys to understanding what is written in the Bible.
Instead of being limited to comic-book superheroes, I now enjoy reading accounts of men and women who were superconquerors because of the power of God they manifested. It is easier to be faithful to something we enjoy. Once we know how to enjoy reading the Bible, actually understanding it, we can increase our faithfulness to read it—and therefore have more seeds of truth to sow.
Reading the Word requires more than just recognizing printed words on a page. We are encouraged to meditate, consider, and give thought to the meanings of the words. The Word of God is the will of God. From reading the Word, we can know the will of God for life’s situations. We are encouraged to read God’s Word. We are to give ourselves wholly to the words of God.
I Timothy 4:13 and 15:
Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.
Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.
Not only are we to give attendance to reading, we are to meditate upon the truths of the Word. “Give thyself wholly to” can literally be translated “be thou in”—we are to be in them, to occupy ourselves in the Word. We can be in them by immersing ourselves in the truth, which requires reflective thinking about what God’s Word says and about the appropriate action to take. Reading the Word is one way to sow seeds of truth in our lives.
We gain understanding by reading the Word. It is this type of attentive, reflective reading and meditating on the exhortation and doctrine of the Word that brings us understanding. Let’s read this in Ephesians 3:3 and 4:
How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,
Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of [pertaining to] Christ).
The Apostle Paul encouraged us to attentively read to gain an understanding of his knowledge of the Mystery. The seven Church Epistles make known the beauty of Christ in us and how to live the Mystery in specific categories of life. By reading records in the Book of Acts, we can gain more understanding of how to live the Mystery. We can see how Paul and others manifested the power of Christ within. Reading the Word gives us understanding of how to live it ourselves.
We can sow seeds of truth to ourselves by faithfully reading the Word. When are we to read the Word? Learning from the instructions given to the Old Testament kings, we can read God’s Word all the days of our lives.
Deuteronomy 17:18 and 19:
And it shall be, when he [the king] sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:
And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear [reverence] the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them.
God instructed the king to faithfully read the Word. God even had the king write out his own personal copy so that it was available to him anytime, day or night. By writing and reading and rereading his copy, the king would learn to reverence God and live according to the will of God. The king was instructed to read God’s Word all the days of his life. Not just one day, but all the days of his life. For God’s Word to be received and benefited from, it must first be sown. Consistently sowing seeds of truth brings rewards now as well as eternally.…
This is an excerpt from the January/February 2013 issue of The Way Magazine.
Copyright© 2013 by The Way International. All rights reserved.
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