Fw: lifetime crop

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Rob Smith <toanosmith@yahoo.com>
To: Rob Smith <rsmith@mycwa.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2017 7:37 AM
Subject: lifetime crop

Matthew 13: 3 And he told them many things in parables, saying: "A sower went out to sow.

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24 He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field,

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31 He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.

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Jesus used the illustration of planting to teach lessons about heaven.  He used the familiar terrain of land and crops and sowing and reaping for a people who lived close to the land and depended on their relationship with the ground to give them life.  In a sense we all have been planted in this ground and will grow from its surface and, like any crop, we will reach some kind of maturity and bear some kind of fruit and eventually return to the ground.  But Jesus uses the illustrations of the earth to teach us about Heaven because He knows that we are a unique kind of produce that has its physical origin on earth but its ultimate destiny in eternity.

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So there are lessons to be learned about the soil quality that will produce best and there are lessons about the sovereign rule of God, as the master farmer and lessons about the great reality of God's Kingdom...which may not appear so great while we live out our days under the sun.  In a sense, all of this natural life is a parable, or picture, that God is using to prepare for the awesome reality of an eternal place.  And as the generations come and go they are like the seasons of sowing and reaping that the ground produces each year.

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(I know the picture of the heron doesn't relate to this but I couldn't resist this morning!)

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blessings,

Rob Smith