Rabbi’s Reflections – Saturday, July 2, 2022
Shabbat Shalom,
Growing in Love for God 23
by David Harwood
Let’s consider wisdom’s role in guiding our praise and worship. Also, let’s begin exploring God’s attitude towards that expression of love. We begin by introducing us to ourselves. Here’s a metaphor describing us.
You are God’s field. (1 Corinthians 3:9b TLV)
Imagine yourself as God’s farm. God’s the farmer. The produce He’s after is a relationship with you.
We reap what we sow. God reaps what He sows. He is working for a harvest. He prepares our hearts as if they were fields and He plants revelation about what He loves about Himself. He understands what will produce the greatest yield. Our loving relationship with Him, is like a crop.
As if words were seed, God sows wisdom and the knowledge of Himself in the soil of our hearts. He sows deliberately. His intention is that we would fulfill the Greatest Command.
10For as the rain and snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without having watered the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to sow and bread to eat, 11so My word will be that goes out from My mouth. It will not return to Me in vain, but will accomplish what I intend, and will succeed in what I sent it for. (Isaiah 55:10–11 TLV)
Unlike an insensate field we need to cooperatively yield. There will be no harvest for God without our Spiritually empowered cooperation. He assists the preparation process: preparing our hearts, removing the stones, plowing our souls, sowing wisely in good soil.
He is not alone in this process. We get to image God through intentionally sowing what we want to harvest. We have the opportunity to wisely ask God for this type of seed:
God, please show me something You love about Yourself that would resonate with my heart.
God knows Himself as supremely worth loving. He created us in such a fashion that our love for Him was worth dying for. He remains involved. Look at how invested the Lord is. He initiates and participates in helping us fellowship with the Messiah in fulfilling the Great Command.
Our God communicates through His Ruach. As He reveals Himself, receive the illumination as if it were seed and your heart was a field. Care for the crop. Harvest it and use the harvest for immediate personal provision and future seed.
Now the One who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your righteousness (2 Corinthians 9:10 TLV)
The LORD sows illumination about Himself to our innermost being. We responsibly care for the revelation. Please read Luke’s recollection of the Messiah’s description of this process.
15But the seed in the good soil are those with a praiseworthy and good heart, who have heard the word and hold it fast and bear fruit with patient endurance. (Luke 8:15 TLV)
The fruit we’re after, in fellowship with the Owner of our lives, is the increase of our capacity to love Him with all our hearts. Our love for Him is important to Him. Perhaps a good petition in this regard might be something along these lines:
Almighty Most High God, reveal to me how important my love for You is to You. Give me wisdom.
The Creator wants the entire created order to be filled with mutual rejoicing love. Along those lines, our praise is part of the process and a result of the harvest God is after.
11For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes things sown to spring up, so Adonai Elohimwill cause justice and praise to spring up before all the nations. (Isaiah 61:11 TLV)
There is a relational cycle of sowing, reaping. and then sowing part of what we reap. As we yield results of relational revelation – our praise to God – we are sowing seed for a future harvest of holy insight. Here is a prophecy that illustrates this reality.
Behold, days are soon coming” —it is a declaration of Adonai— “when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the one treading grapes, the one sowing seed. (Amos 9:13a TLV)
Right now, sowing and reaping are taking place at the same time. Planting and harvesting are concurrent. God’s harvest, our response to revelation He sowed in us, is like seed we sow. Our praise is part of that harvest and is meaningful to the God we love. It will produce a future harvest of illumination. Our response to God’s goodness delights the God we love. It is a significant aspect of God’s harvest and our seed.
Daily Bread, reading plan by Lars Enarson (https://www.thewatchman.org/)
Sat 02-Jul-2022 3rd of Tamuz, 5782
Nu 18:21-32 1 Sa 11:14-12:22 1 Th 5:12-22