(Matthew
13:33) “He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and
hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened."”
Leaven does its work without noise; it
works speedily, powerfully, effectively and eventually works its way through
the body of the flour affecting all of it.
There are two ways of looking at the
effectiveness of leaven, or yeast like fermenting agent if you prefer. Its proficiency
can be used to draw analogies by highlighting many truths within an individual’s
life and the Lord Jesus often spoke in parables teaching some very valuable
lessons to those who had been given ears to understand. Not everyone will
understand the lessons behind the allegory but that was always God’s intention.
The gainsayer and the manipulator or the one seeking out God’s blessings for
their bellies sakes will always misinterpret the intended message.
The gainsayer will twist the parable
into a doctrine of devils and use it as a manipulation tool to feed his own
selfish wants, But God will have the last Word, that is guaranteed.
However yeast if used correctly within
its correct application to bring about change in the body of dough often
results with a bakers masterpiece enjoyed by many. Faith will have a similar effect
if applied correctly in any given circumstance; “the just shall live by faith”!
We must learn to put our anxiety aside and in faith commit our causes to God,
trusting Him, for God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. It is
never natural to lay our independence aside as we learn to depend upon God’s
provision, but it is most certainly extremely needful if we are to make
progress with our Christian plight.
We can often end up toiling to no
avail; here is a wonderful example that teaches us so much if and when we pay
careful attention to the lesson…
“On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in
on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and
he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were
washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked
him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people
from the boat. And when he
had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out
into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." And Simon answered,
"Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let
down the nets." And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of
fish, and their nets were breaking.” (Luke 5:1-6)
Let me break this down; there was a crowd
pressing in to hear the master teach and only after the Lord Jesus had spoken
life to the hearers and once he had their attention did He offer up a miracle.
We must first hear the voice of our God speak clearly to us placing all of our
dependence upon him before we will reap the true benefits of Christianity. The
Bible is full of these types of examples, but how will we ever know the voice
of God if we do not read the Bible? Reading with intent to study and learn must
be in the forefront of our minds if we are to be instructed by the voice of
God. God the Holy Spirit will teach us right from wrong. We must show respect
to what is being taught and we must learn from the intent of this crowd that
they were bullish when it came to receiving from Christ, which can be forgiven
even though they wrestle amongst one another and “pressed hard upon him”. We
have in like manner been commanded to approach the throne of grace with
boldness; confidence must be evident in us when we seek our God’s face. We are
not to be timid and approach God hedging our bets allowing unbelief to dictate.
God is well pleased when we learn to apply faith to every one of our
predicaments. The Apostle Peter had fished all day without any return but He
had understood that it was God who had commanded Him to cast out the nets in
spite of his situation; he had heard the voice of God speak! Often our efforts
bring no return, but if God is for us who can be against us? The result was
phenomenal, at God’s word Peter cast out the nets and the impossible then
happened, the nets were filled to bursting, praise God!
God will always use an opportune time to teach us
to rely on Him, but how can that ever happen if we do not understand the
magnitude of these types of miracles in our lives? We must be prepared in order
to comprehend the full measure of the lesson. The brilliance of God is rather
phenomenal when realised. We have so much in us that always looks to drive us
in the opposite direction, our independence must diminish and the sooner this
is learnt the happier we will be. Our total dependence is in God’s provision and
nothing else will hack it. This is why we often have to find ourselves in a position
of want before the lesson can be learnt. Therefore let us not run from our
dependency toward God but let us learn to appreciate what it can teach us, Amen
and Amen!
Signing off
Tyrone
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