Committed to a New You

God’s Word, the Bible, is what God has to say to us about our condition, our need for Him, His desire and readiness to rescue us, and how we can have access to that rescue.  In Ezekiel 36:26, God says, “I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” 

How we desperately need Him to rescue us from the stoniness of apathy and hardness of pride!  How we urgently need His deliverance from the awful destination our indifference to His Gospel will bring us unless He changes our hearts! 

But His mercy and grace move and challenge us to turn to Him.  How even now He invites you and me to relinquish our futile efforts to control our destiny and trust His good will towards us!  How He urges us to yield to His holy authority and allow Him to make us new! 

And, if we will indeed turn in faith to Him, how He is faithful to make of us new things!  “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.  All this is from God, Who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18 ESV).

But how does that work?  How does the “new” that God has made of us spiritually become the “new” that God intends of us experientially? 

In Romans 12:2, God says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” 

The “new” that we experience and that those around us can see is the transformed life that flows from the mind that is no longer conformed (shaped and influenced) by the world around us, but is free indeed (see John 8:36) to be unafraid in the presence of God, unhindered in the worship of God’s, and unchained from patterns of sin and folly that once characterized our lives before God brought us to faith in Jesus. 

The “key” to that kind of “new” is in a mind that is overhauled by God’s truth.  The renewed mind to which Romans 12:2 refers is the mind that is filled with 1) new thoughts, specifically God’s own thoughts which are imparted to us from God’s Word, the Bible.  Those new thoughts deliver to our psyches the 2) new ideas (new to us, anyway) of God’s perspective, our new identity as God’s children and all the amazing and glorious truths of that new identity.  These new ideas lead us to make 3) new commitments, specifically commitments to know Jesus and to make Him known.  And these new commitments lead us to 4) new choices each day and in each situation; decisions to obey God, to love others, and to entrust our welfare into His care.   As these new choices are lived out consistently, we invariably find ourselves with 5) new habits, and with God’s help, find that it is becoming our nature to walk with Him and live life on His terms as opposed to our own.  And as these new habits become increasingly characteristic of us, we begin to truly enter into 6) new experiences that reinforce and reinvigorate us in our journey through this life toward our eternal destination, home with God forever and ever. 

Is God interested in your life being set free from regret and becoming a transformed masterpiece?  Is He concerned about you experiencing more than merely a religious lifestyle?  Is He committed to your knowing love, forgiveness, peace, and hope for the future?  Yes.  To all of this, yes!  God is at work in your life, His Spirit is calling to your spirit, and His Son, Jesus, is inviting you to know what it means to finally live life the way you were created to live it! 

Copyright © Thom Mollohan

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Pray… In Spite of Sin

I recently ran across a very sad post on social media in which it was stated, more-or-less, that the person who posted it no longer prays for the same reason that Christians should no longer attend church: namely, that this person feels to do so is an act of hypocrisy.

I find it sad on a number of levels, but a chief reason it has this effect on me is the hopelessness inherent to that perspective. It basically states that, because I am imperfect, because I struggle with sinful thoughts and compulsions, and because I say or do things that I should not do, I should not seek to connect with God and it assumes that God is not seeking to connect with me. In other words, because it is incomprehensible to me that God has NOT given up on me, I see no reason why I shouldn’t give up on God.

I do not know this individual personally so I cannot say what experiences, disappointments, betrayals and failures have fed this conclusion, but I do know that it is in error because it does not take into account what God actually says and what Jesus historically did for liars, thieves, murderers, adulterers, and any other kind of sinner one can name.

The rebuttal to such tragically mistaken ideas about God is that one does not pray because he or she is without sin. One does not attend church because he or she does not struggle with sin. On the contrary, it is because we recognize the reality of an innate struggle in the human heart against impulses of fear, pride, lust, anger and hate and it is a lost cause except for God’s grace.

On our own, we cannot be holy enough to reach God. This is the very reason that Jesus came to earth: to live as one of us – yet without sin (see Hebrews 4:15), to die as a sacrifice on our behalf because we cannot save ourselves (see Hebrews 2:17), and to grant us a tangible hope through our sharing in His resurrection from the dead (see 1 Peter 1:3).

So we pray… in spite of our sin, trusting in the grace of God shown to us in Jesus Christ. We attend church… in spite of our sin, learning little by little to love others as He has loved us. We worship, serve, and follow Him… in spite of our sin, growing day-by-day into a maturity that we never fully reach until either our bodies finally fail us and we go to heaven, or Jesus returns and receives us to Himself.

We are not perfect. But that is why Jesus came. This is the good news: that God would put onto Jesus all of our condemnation, forgive us even though we are horribly wretched and depraved, and give to us the assurance of heaven with Him forever. Praise Him!

I sat last week with a man who in anger stated that one day he would be sitting in hell with the people who had hurt him. Somehow this seemed to him a consolation for all he had suffered.

I answered him, “You don’t have to sit in hell with anyone. God can and will forgive your sin and give you the hope of heaven with Himself if you’ll turn to Him, away from your sin, and follow Him.”

He said, “But you don’t know all the things I have done in my life.”

“No, I don’t,” I replied. “But I don’t have to. God knows and He gave such a perfect sacrifice in His Son Jesus that even your sin can be forgiven. Don’t insult Him by refusing His gift.”

“God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:4-10 ESV).

Copyright © Thom Mollohan

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The Only Reasonable Path

I truly believe that much of the point of your and my existence today is that we, as God’s children by faith in Jesus Christ, live our lives in such a way that there is a marked difference in what can be observed about us and the lives of those who do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord. 

This is the challenge, of course, for every generation as Christians must each learn how to live in the midst of the world without living like the world around them.  It’s so important that we learn this due in part to the fact that we are living testimonies to the glory, holiness and love of God.  But it is also important that we realize that living apart from the world, even though we live in the world, is a continuum of worship for us. 

Our integrity, our kindness, our work ethic, our patience, our seeking to live out God’s holiness, our zeal for God’s name and so on, all render to our heavenly Father a spiritual kind of incense that is worship. These things, along with our prayers, songs, and fellowship with other Believers, speak of God’s worth and deepen a lasting spiritual joy and sense of peace within our own hearts.  Add to that the love and grace that God gives us opportunity to demonstrate every day, we are, in a sense, united with Him in His Spirit as He invisibly works, moves, and loves through us in our sin-sick world. 

“We ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.  For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.  For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you.  For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.  Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-8 ESV). 

Yes, the days and times are evil and people have a way of wanting to follow their own path and have their own way rather than to trust God’s word, the Bible, and follow His ways.  This is all the more reason that you and I must commit ourselves again to live in the pursuit of cultivating a deeper relationship with Him and living out His loving and holy presence in practical ways.  The rewards are real and eternal.  The cost is small and only temporary.  Why should we not then trust that following Him and living according to His Word is the only truly reasonable path to commit to today?  But let’s hurry to follow through with this now.  Time is running short.  Jesus is coming soon.

 

Copyright © Thom Mollohan

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The Haven of Hope in God

It may feel to you, in the ongoing social whirlwinds ravaging our world right now, that there is so much upheaval and so much danger, that things just aren’t safe. And if you do, then anxiety, worry, and fear (as well as the resulting resentment, anger, and hate) are sure to be plaguing you both day and night. These things tempt you to either take onto yourself a reaction to the world around you that promises a feeling of empowerment or to retreat and hide in a psychological or emotional bunker, as you hope that the storm around you leaves you alone and finally blows over.

It should be clear to you that the world around you wants you to be upset, scared and angry because such emotional responses (on all political sides) make you vulnerable to manipulation and compliance to someone else’s agenda. But more importantly, your spiritual enemy, the devil, wishes for you to feel these ways in order to turn your eyes away from God. He knows that if you are not looking to and trusting in God, you cannot feel His peace. If you are taking the bait and believe the lies that the devil constantly rains down onto you (like constant barrages of fiery arrows), you will be too distracted to trust God and too self-reliant to not try to do something in your own strength and in your own wisdom.

This spiritual angst is a poison for which someone who does not know Jesus as Lord and Savior has no real defense. Faith in Jesus Christ is an essential part of the armor of God, and we are admonished to “in all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16 ESV). This “shield of faith” is a battle-tested confidence that the God Who made perfect provision for us in the perfect sacrifice of His Son is able to do far more and above all that we need in this life and in the life to come!

“If God is for us, who can be against us? He Who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:31b-32 ESV). What things? All things we need in this life and for the next. That means that whatever is happening in this life is under His sovereign control to care for, protect, refine, and guide those who belong to and trust in Him!

I am glad to say that God is in absolute control of everything (read Romans 8:28-39). And the fact that He is means that He is able to carry us through the craziness of the world around us! The problem is not now nor has ever been a lack of God’s power or love to help us. The problem is that we don’t believe His promises and we don’t trust in His Word. We often say that we do, but when it comes down to it, our choices clearly show that we will trust in ourselves and the world around us before we trust in Him.

It’s too bad, too. The remedy for “what ails us” is trusting in God. The devil, through the world, will say to us, “That’s enough talk about trusting God. It’s time we do something ourselves.” But that of course only sets us enslaves us further and deepens the quagmire of our own fallen nature. It causes us to reap the tragic consequences of failure once again, and tempts us to try some other “doomed-to-fail” scheme that further propels us from the hope and calm healing that God alone can give us.

But hope in God is ours if we’ll receive it and hope in God is what we need. “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD God is an everlasting rock” (Isaiah 26:3-4 ESV).

You are welcome to trust Him and experience His peace even if the world around you is all chaos and strife. You are welcome to receive His gift of mercy and forgiveness through Jesus. You are invited to know His power and love. Will you not receive Him today?

Copyright © Thom Mollohan

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Turn Around, Don’t Drown

The idea of sin is not something that our society deals well with. We have a divine call to live, not according to the impulses of the flesh or the compulsions given us by the culture around us, but to a standard given to us from God Himself. The word “sin” itself is often misunderstood or misused. For instance, it has a way of being invoked when certain people like to find harsh ways to criticize others to lift themselves up.  Or it has been used to oppress or control people to fulfill selfish desires. Because there have been throughout the years so many instances where this has happened, many of us reject the idea of sin out of hand as something purely humanly contrived and useless today. 

But the idea of sin, as given to us by the Bible, is simply this: a rejection of the authority of God in our lives and a giving of our ourselves to something less than our Creator. Sin in this way is really about our refusal to be subordinate to God Himself and exalting something to the position of devotion and worship that only God deserves. 

Sin separates us from God. It is not religious issue. It is a life and death issue. Sin debases us, even when we strive to exalt ourselves, because it diminishes the image of God within us. See, we are created in His image and reflect it much like a mirror reflects our own.  So if He is not shining upon us because we’ve turned away to serve ourselves, then the image of God cannot be seen in us.  Furthermore, sin is a crime because it robs God of what He alone is worthy of and, unless it is remedied through our receiving forgiveness and restoration through faith in Jesus Christ, it results in our permanent separation from Him and the eternal home He has prepared for His Children. 

But this is why Jesus came. He came to not only teach us and show us the way back to God, but to die a substitutionary death for us so that we can be reconciled to Him and our sin be atoned for. 

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:16-17 ESV). 

So sin is quite a serious matter. The Word of God teaches us that not only did Jesus have to do the unthinkable to save us from spiritual death, we are told that He died to save us from continuing in patterns of sin. “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9 ESV).  This means that we are encouraged to take up a holy vigil in our lives to abandon patterns of sinful thinking and living as these things wage war against our soul. 

Recently, high waters covered many roads in our area. There is a very good reason that we have the motto, “Turn around! Don’t drown!” People look at water over the road and think, “It’s not so bad. I can handle it.” Only to find out too late their error. A car can be swept away in only inches of fast-moving water. A car can sink in only minutes.  A person can lose his or her life so fast because they trusted their impulses over the wise counsel given to them to avoid such deadly situations. 

Sin is so like that! We flirt with it. We experiment with it. We edge out into it enjoying the “freedom” and the “thrill” it gives us. And then, before we know it, we are swept into it. Without the rescue that only Jesus can give, we are swallowed up by it, destroyed eternally. It does not need to be this way. God has invited you to turn to Him and walk a path of life. 

“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins…. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 2:1-2, 1:9 ESV). 

If you are God’s, then turn away from the lure of sin. Turn to His forgiveness and the holy calling He has given to you to know the joy of holy fellowship with Himself. And if you are not yet His, He died for you. Will you not receive His give of forgiveness and eternal life?  

Copyright © Thom Mollohan

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Invited to the Party

Jesus invites you to follow Him.  The invitation comes when you read the Bible, hear it preached or taught, or encounter one of His children who tells you of or shows you His truth and love.  And as with any invitation you might receive, there is a choice before you to receive it and act on it, or to not do so and, consequently, miss out on the opportunity to which you’ve been invited. 

The trick is recognizing that you and I cannot follow Him and still live life according to our own agenda, plans, desires, and wisdom.  That is the same thing as receiving a party invitation and saying you’ll come and yet refusing to leave the party you’re in. 

“As they were going along the road, someone said to Him (Jesus), ‘I will follow You wherever You go.’  And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’  To another He said, ‘Follow Me.’  But he said, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’  And Jesus said to him, ‘Leave the dead to bury their own dead.  But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’  Yet another said, ‘I will follow You, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’  Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:57-62 ESV). 

Before we receive His invitation to follow Him, you and I are already attending a party.  The party we attend before we heed the call of Jesus is the party that the world is throwing.  It promises us entertainments, pleasures, and delicacies if only we’ll pursue those things on the terms of the world around us.  We learn the “house rules” of the party we’ve been invited to and live accordingly.  We cheat, lie, and steal.  We neglect people and mock the truth.  We puff ourselves up and strive to be in the spotlight of attention and approval of everyone else. 

But the “party” that Jesus invites us to causes us to leave the world’s party behind and as we forsake it, we are freed to enter into the celebration of fellowship with God that only Jesus can provide us.  And, of course, the party here has entirely different rules.  We come through the doorway of faith in Jesus Christ, and in humbleness learn that the music playing in this party is the love song of God for His children and the praise we give Him from our own lips.  The dance we dance is the humble devotion of a life lived surrendered to God and the acts of loving service we render one another as we become God’s extension of Himself to those around us. 

This party God throws is catered with the sweet and savory truths of His Word and the refreshing drink we are given is the sweet fellowship He gives us as we learn the reality of His ongoing presence in our lives.  I suppose, if we continue to think about it, we might consider that the “door prizes” that each of us are granted are not the cheap, breakable things that perish with this world, but are opportunities to see God work in and through our lives knowing that what He is up to goes with us into forever.

The invitation Jesus sends you is an earnest one.  He sincerely desires you to join Him.  The invitation is an urgent one.  Spiritually speaking, life and death are on the line for you and me. And He cares enough to intervene in your life to choose you right now to hear Him and receive that invitation.  The invitation He gives you is accessible only through Himself.  You and I cannot come to Him on our own terms.  To try to do so only ends in tragic failure.  We must come to Him through faith.  The kind of faith that repents of sin (our rebellion against God and refusal to listen and obey Him).  The kind of faith that decides to trust Jesus over every other path.  The kind of faith that leads to living life God’s way.  Will you accept that invitation?  Will you follow Him? 

Copyright © Thom Mollohan

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The Promise of Christmas Peace

The holiday season is generally a time when we expect to feel something a little warmer, a little happier, and little more hopeful than what we have in the previous months of the year. But in any given year, the experience seems to fall short of the expectations. We allow our anticipation to build, as we drudge through the doldrums and difficulties of the rest of the year, trying to keep our eyes on the prize of finally finding peace, joy, and love. 

But problems are no respecter of expectations. They still come. There is still sickness, still financial troubles, still loneliness, and still brokenness. The holiday, in of itself, cannot make us whole or prepare us adequately for the new year coming our way. Suicide rates, overdoses, recklessness that ends in tragedy happen more often in the midst of the Christmas season and into the gray winter months that follow than in any other time of the year. 

Compound this vicious cycle with the charged challenges of a year like the last couple have been, and we’re likely to see such numbers exponentially increase. And you might prove to be a casualty… if you’re not prepared. 

Peace, for example, is not something to take for granted. Jesus promises peace to His followers in John 16:33, “I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulations. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (ESV). 

Whether or not you have peace in your heart matters to God. So much so, in fact, that Jesus, Who the prophecies name the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6), came from heaven to earth, encasing His holiness in the fragile frame of a human child, so that He would grow up to become a perfect sacrifice for us (Ephesians 2:14-16). Through Him, we have peace with God (Romans 5:1), and the empowerment by His Holy Spirit to experience His peace in our hearts. 

In other words, it is God’s will that you and I place our complete faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior and entrust our lives, our pasts, and our futures into His perfectly wise and loving care. We experience His peace, in part, as a matter of choice when we choose to trust Him, choose to follow Him, and choose to obey His Word. 

Many Christians do not experience His peace as a matter of daily living. All Christians at some point are tempted to trust their own wisdom, their own strengths, their own hearts over God’s Word and then reap a harvest of anxiety, angst, and frustration, leading to paths of despair. Peace is not native to our fallen, mortal nature, but is the third fruit referred to as emanating from God’s Holy Spirit as He works out in us the very life of God Himself (see Galatians 5:22). 

This means that while you may not be experiencing His peace at this point in your life, you are invited to. But you must do so on God’s terms. God’s peace cannot be found in one that is not connected to God. It will not grow in you if the branch of your life is not connected to the vine of Jesus (John 15:1-5). Nor can it be granted to a person who is not yet at peace with God through the forgiveness of Jesus’ sacrifice. 

You are invited to know His peace. You are invited to know Him, the Prince of Peace. You are invited to lay down your cares for the present, regrets of the past, and fears for the future and live as a forgiven, born-again child of God. You are invited to come to Him and become an heir to His promises of peace, hope, joy, and love. To do so, you must turn your back on serving your own way, continuing in your own sin, and following your own will. You must let go and must embrace Him. You must allow yourself to be freed from such shackles and chains and be turned loose to follow Him as Savior and Lord. 

You can have peace for this holiday season… if you’ll turn wholly to God. You can have peace for the upcoming year… if you’ll trust wholly in Him. You can know that God goes before you to prepare the way. All you need to do is listen to Him, trust Him, and obey Him. Are you ready to experience true peace? 

Copyright © Thom Mollohan

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Stop and Give Thanks

Be sure to take special time and make special effort to stop and give thanks to God.  It’s a tough thing to imagine doing when one has been bombarded with messages about how miserable we all are and how terrible things happen to be, yet doing so helps to set us free from the chains of depressing self-absorption and resentments emanating from frustrated expectations.

Think about it. Nothing does so much to inform our hearts of the good things we have in life and have experienced in life so much as tearing away our eyes from what we don’t have, what others seem to enjoy that we don’t, and false promises for happiness this world offers as fixing our gaze on things we do have, have enjoyed, and brought peace and happiness to our lives. 

An unthankful people are an unhappy people.  But if we recognize that God in His mercy and goodness actually has customized blessings for us if we’ll choose to stop to acknowledge them, we are pushing out of our hearts the venom of dissatisfaction and enviousness as well as the anxiety of feeling like we’re missing something. 

An evening along the Ohio River in Gallipolis, Ohio

There is one thing in particular for which we’ve been made and without which we cannot find true and lasting happiness that God grants us in abundance if we’ll simply receive it.  This is the one thing we do not want to miss out on.  It is this:  to know the Father and Jesus Christ Whom He sent.  This is the most important desire of God for you and me, that we know Him, truly know Him as He is in all His perfection, glory, and love!  In fact, this is how Jesus defines eternal life in John 17:3:  an enduring into eternity kind of relationship with Him in which our sin no longer has a hold of us and the world no longer holds a place in our hearts. 

See?  There is much to be thankful for.  In addition to the fact that God does provide for your needs (when He certainly doesn’t owe you that), and beyond the truth that God has given you a special uniqueness that no other person can duplicate, God has given you the opportunity to know Him as Lord and Savior through Jesus Christ.  And with that come the blessings of being His child:  His presence, His support, His watch care and provision for you if you’ll walk with Him through each day.  Even His discipline is a blessing if you’ll receive it for what it is:  God’s work to first of all, draw you closer to Himself; secondly, to purify and refine your heart and character of those things that would steal His peace and joy from you; and finally to demonstrate His God-sized love for you and readiness to work powerfully in your life.   

So, instead of allowing yourself to be duped into thinking you’ve got a bad deal in life, you need this thing or that thing to be happy, or that somehow others are ruining your life, turn your eyes to God and look at Him through the lens of His Son’s perfect sacrifice for you.  Stop worrying and stop rushing.  Stop and look.  Stop and give thanks.  Stop and be free… to experience God’s joy and peace anew! 

“Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!  Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise!” (Psalm 95:1-2 ESV). 

Copyright © Thom Mollohan

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Which Soil Are You?

I believe that it could be rightly said that God is always sowing in your life.  As you are reading this and your mind is drawn to the love of God, seeds of mercy and grace from His Word, the Bible, are being planted into your heart.  God is holy and God is just, but hearing (or reading, as it were) of the love of God as expressed through His Son, Jesus Christ, is God’s intervention in you to receive forgiveness and life.

Since the seed of God’s Word has been cast into your experience, the trick then is whether or not your life is a fertile soil in which that seed can take root, germinate and ultimately bear eternal fruit.

Jesus describes this spiritual reality in Matthew 13 in what we usually call the “Parable of the Sower”.  He says in verses 1-9 that seed was sown into a variety of soils, but only one type bore fruit.  By “fruit”, He specifically means the fruit that goes into eternal life (life beyond the end of your physical body).

In verses 18-23, Jesus explains the soils.  He says that the seed sown along the path which was devoured by the birds, is the Word of God but it is not understood or appreciated and then the evil one (the devil) interferes and snatches away what has been sown in the hearer’s heart (v. 19).  That is to say, that the hearer is the intentional target of misinformation, lies, and “fake news” (spiritually speaking).  So although the hearer heard the Word of God, he dismisses it and moves on to other things that sound easier or more appealing to him.

Jesus then shares about the soil that is like a rocky ground, comparing it to the person who hears the Word of God (the Gospel of Jesus Christ) and receives it joyfully (v. 20), but as the Word does not take root (become deeply embedded in the hearer’s heart), comes to nothing when trouble or persecution come.  Persecution is the pressure one feels as a result of trusting Jesus as Lord and Savior and living a life pleasing to Him.  It can range from vague discomfort to outright physical pain and suffering as the world resists what God is doing in the life of the Believer.  No depth spiritually results in an eventual withering and failure to bear fruit.

The seed sown into the ground with thorns, the seed does sprout and does put some roots down, but is eventually overwhelmed by the “cares of the world and deceitfulness of riches” (v. 22). and proves to be unfruitful.  This is like a Believer who may indeed profess faith, but is so busy with worry or with trying to get ahead, he loses sight of the eternal aspect of his life and fails to see the true purpose of his salvation.

Then there is the fertile soil.  This is the Believer who receives the Word of God, His forgiveness, trusts it and lives it, and then shares it with others.  As gardens go, flower gardens are lovely, but the people of God are created to bear fruit that goes beyond our physical existence here, and extends in flourishing ways into eternity.

The Bible tells us that Jesus told this parable to “great crowds” who had gathered about Him to hear Him speak of the Kingdom of God (see Matthew 13:1-2).  This is because the people gathered around him were a mixed bunch of people who would receive the words that Jesus was speaking in a number of ways.

Some heard and dismissed it because they preferred other paths to the one Jesus presented them.  Some heard and were glad, but His words did not take root in the soil of their hearts and so, after the smallest inconvenience, they left it and went on to other things.  Some heard, but their hearts were so riddled with worry that they felt that they could never quite fully trust Jesus’ offer of salvation, and every opportunity for potential fruit was choked out by distraction and hesitation, so there was no real effect of Jesus’ life and power in them.

But then there were some.  Some who heard.  Some who believed.  Some who received and embraced His words.  These few, revealed only over the course of time and through many hardships and challenges, were the few who bore fruit.  The effect of their lives impacted others in turn so that others also eventually would hear, believe, receive and embrace those same words of Jesus and, as a result, experience eternal life.

Which soil are you?

Copyright © Thom Mollohan

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A Special Connection in a Time of Isolation

In the midst of great divides, the treasure of sharing a special connection with others is increasingly precious. It cannot be overstated that much of the suffering people face today is in the feeling of being cut off from others. In many ways, we were already sliding down that slope. In pre-pandemic months and years, isolation fostered by mere illusions of connection offered us by technology were already gripping with an icy hold the hearts of people, freezing their sense of hope and true connection with others.

How is this possible when the means to connect with others has only become increasingly easy? Because with that ease has come the ease of pretending to be something one is not. What we see in our shallow connections with others over social media and video technology are carefully packaged presentations of people who put on display either a semblance of perfection to show how “together” one is or the outlandish deviations people can concoct as they attempt to draw attention to themselves and feel special and unique.

What we are not getting are authentic connections. We are not getting real love and acceptance, but likes and shares that grant us illusions of love and uniqueness. How very lonely then for us since just as surely we only share our pretend selves with others, others only share pretend selves with us. There is no true “knowing” of another in this way.

How precious then is what the child of God has in Christ and shares with other Christians as we let down our masks of whatever we think we must pretend to be. When we courageously admit how weary, broken and hurt we are and, yes, even our guilt as fallen individuals, we experience a moment of truth in which we can confess that while we are each sinners, we share a common forgiveness in Jesus Christ which binds us eternally with one another. “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Romans 12:4-5 ESV).

Not only that, but we share so much in Him that any “joining together” we experience in the world outside of this special bond pales in comparison. “There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, Who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6 ESV).

Perhaps this is why the Scripture in Philippians 1:7 resonates with us as the writer speaks of how he feels about other Believes, no matter the miles that separate them. “It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace”.

When mostly what we hear about is that which would divide us, I hold to my heart that there is something infinitely wonderful at work, binding my life to my brothers and sisters in Christ: the grace of God in Jesus. The world and its troubles may try to drown out that beautiful truth with the noise of hate, fear, and despair, but as I turn again and again to the Bible, the Word of God, I see that I share with each Child of God something greater than all the temporary treasures and pleasures of the world.

Will I always agree with everything another Christian says or does? No. Will other Christians always “feel” close to me and I to them? Again, no. But these things cannot alter the truth of the special bond that I share with others who have received God’s great gift of forgiveness and eternal life through Christ. This truth is a special truth that Christians must especially hold dear and demonstrate for the world around us now. As people feel increasingly “cut off”, the authentic connection that only Jesus can bring to His people is a life-saving promise those around us need to see, hear, and experience. So let us cherish it, commit to experience it more and more, and let us share it. The time to do so is now.

Copyright © Thom Mollohan

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