Seeds Live Truthfully!

Here lately I’ve gone back to some of the great classics when it comes to a solid understanding about the nature of God’s Kingdom.  And one of those great teachers from the past is A.W. Tozer.  Yesterday this one really grabbed me and I thought, “Wow!  So simple but even more powerfully true!  Why can’t Churchians and Tenured Pew Sitters see this and stop their effete and enervated attitudes? They are the brummagem purveyors of the attitude that is devouring so many local congregations.

In all that is false, bogus and spurious, in our culture and being propagated by Churchians and Tenured Pew Sitters, it is seeds that know the truth!  Hey!  Didn’t Jesus say something about knowing a tree by what it produces?  They must have missed that part of the Bible.  But seeds know the truth.  I mean, does the seed from Kudzu really think, “Hey, I believe that I am going to produce grapes, grapes that will produce the finest wines (or Welch’s Grape Juice for my more fundamentalist and hyper-evangelical friends) that has ever been produced!”  As Steve Harvey might say, “Oh, Heck Nawl!” (again, for my hyper friends, I chose a tamer word).

Kudzu seeds knows all it will produce is more Kudzu.  And here is another thing about Kudzu:  though they only produce limited seeds, it’s their root system that makes them so invasive.  Their “crown roots” can go as deep as 12 feet and can outlast other vegetation in a drought.  And here’s the analogy for the American Church.  Once your understanding of God and the Gospel gets polluted, you will taint the next generation and they will dilute and pollute the truth a little bit more, and so will the next and the next and the next and the next and the…get the point, yet?

Many churches, well-meaning churches, have created a hybrid gospel that is not gospel at all.  As Reggie McNeal (not the football player) points out in his book Kingdom Come we have started producing and telling a story centered around the local church rather than the Kingdom of God.  In simpler terms, our story is too small.  What is needed is a new batch of seeds.  Churchians and Tenured Pew Sitters do not need to be reformed, but TRANSFORMED!  And transformation will only happen when we do these two things:

1. Admit the problem and throw away all these “bad seeds” that are weakening (much to the delight of our Enemy) local congregations.  In Biblical terminology (again for my hyper friends) CONFESS AND REPENT!  It won’t hurt you to cry some at this point.  Be sad, you spreaders of bad seeds!
2. Surrender to God so that He can radically transform the heart and mind.  Only God can do this.  We can’t produce the True Seeds of the Kingdom by slowly turning away from the bad.  That is like an alcoholic saying, “I’m going to kick this addiction by reducing my consumption of alcohol by 1 or 2 drinks a week until I’ve stopped drinking all together.”  I have never known an alcoholic kick their habit that way.  But I do know a lot of alcoholics who broke free from their addiction by the grace of God, and they will tell you that.  Oh, and another thing about alcoholics, they know that 1 drink will send them back into that downward spiral.  So those who are spreading the bad seeds, stay on your guard that you don’t do it again by hanging on to God and His power at work in you.

Seeds live truthfully.  They only produce what they are capable of producing.  That part comes from their nature.  Make sure YOUR nature is the right one; the one that is the result of God’s transforming and radical grace.  You can’t scatter crabgrass seeds and hope to have a Zoysia lawn.

And remember, love God with all your heart.  Love others the way Jesus loves you.  And make sure all the glory goes to Him; by getting rid of those old seeds and becoming the new seeds of the Kingdom of God.

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