Hope, Joy and Crown

Hope, Joy and Crown

1 Thessalonians 2:19-20
For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? 20Indeed, you are our glory and joy.

When we selflessly plant ourselves into other people’s lives what is our gain if they can’t reward us and we see no earthly or monetary benefit? What do we hope to see in our children through the years of raising them, nurturing, teaching and mentoring them? It is not for what they can pay us back in material gain that we do it. It is a labor of love and the harvest we long to see, that we continue to pray for, hope for and believe for are lives that are healthy, productive and that produce a legacy. A parent’s greatest reward is to have children that love and respect them, but also that hold to the values of faith that were instilled in them and that they in turn instill those same values in their children. We long to see a perpetual legacy of generations that follow on to know and obey the Lord.
The churches that the apostle Paul established were his children. He taught them, mentored them and raised them up in the faith and knowledge of Christ. It wasn’t a job for him; it was his life, his purpose and his joy. When he stood before the Lord there was no greater testimony to his faithfulness and his greatness as a servant of God than those that he had raised up in Christ. He was able to stand with the Lord and look through the generations at the harvest he had been instrumental in producing in the earth. This stood as Paul’s greatest, hope, joy and crown. This was his greatest reward.
Our greatest reward in heaven won’t be about our businesses, our finances or our status in the community; it will be about what we planted in others. It will be about what we sowed into their lives through our faithful commitment and walk with Christ. We want to see it in our children and our grandchildren. We want to see it in the ones that we helped disciple and bring to Christ. Nothing breaks our heart more than to see what we have treasured and nurtured stolen and destroyed by sin. It is for this reason that our Lord Jesus ever stands as our high priest making intercession on our behalf. He too, longs after us to be His hope, joy and crown.
Let us not grow weary or complacent concerning the awesome responsibility that we have toward those who under our spiritual authority or influence. We must remember that we are the priests of our home and have the responsibility to pray, intercede, teach and persuade our families in the ways of righteousness and salvation. Be faithful to the gift, the calling and instrument that God has created you to be. How we respond and use what He has created us to be and how that translates into the lives of others will be our hope, our joy and crown. Our legacy is our glory and our joy.

Blessings,
#kent

Two Kinds of Seed

Two Kinds of Seed

Deuteronomy 22:9
You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or all the produce of the seed which you have sown and the increase of the vineyard will become defiled.

If our life is a vineyard, what kind of seed or seeds are we planting into it? I was thinking how mankind from the beginning has been influenced and followed after one of two different kind of seeds. In the Garden of Eden, in the book of Genesis there were two types of trees in the midst of the garden. One was the Tree of Life and the other the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We have these same two trees in the midst of our soul, which one do we partake of. Which seed are you planting in your soul or do we plant a mixture of two different types of seed. Do we defile the fruit of our vineyard by planting both the seed of Spirit from the Tree of Life or the seed of the flesh from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good an Evil? God is saying you need to plant one or the other, but not both. Do we think that just because we plant the seed of Spirit in our lives it pleases God if we are also planting the seed of the flesh? Revelations 3:15-16 written to the Church of the Laodecians, the Lord speaks by the Spirit saying, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”
The reason the Lord doesn’t want a mixture of the two different seeds is because it brings in compromise. It dilutes and perverts the effect of one seed. The mixture, God finds unacceptable.
As we survey the kingdom of heaven what do we see, but a mixture of flesh and Spirit? In Matthew 13:47-50 Jesus gives a parable, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” The truth is that there are two seeds planted in the vineyard of the Church and the vineyard of our own lives. We have been growing two seeds, but there is only one that is acceptable to the Lord. The one seed is a weed that brings spiritual death; the other is the seed of Life whose fruit brings life everlasting. The Lord is speaking that He only wants one type of seed planted in His vineyard. Isn’t He speaking to us to root out every seed and offspring that defiles our soul, so that there may be one kind of fruit, the fruit of the Spirit. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to help us to weed the garden of our souls, so that there may be purity restored in our hearts and only one kind of undefiled fruit, which the Holy Spirit wants to produce in us and through us.

Blessings,
kent