01/03/24 NOT ALL SEED IS EQUAL

01/03/24 NOT ALL SEED IS EQUAL

Okay, this is not a pleasant scenario, but many of us can relate to it.

An ice cold watermelon has been sliced up and put on the table on a hot summer day.

Some of us pick up a wedge of melon and dive into it, like a piranha. When we pull back there is juice dripping off of our chin and seeds in our mouth. We turn our head and spit out the seeds, like rifle fire. (I warned you it would not be pleasant.) And yes, there is a more genteel way to remove the seeds, but that is not part of this post.

Though we do not want to ingest the seeds, it does not mean that the seeds are useless or bad. In fact, those seeds (likes most seeds) have the potential of producing more fruit (not that we want a watermelon patch to grow in our stomach).

Now, here is the application of this illustration.

I see a lot of Christians treat the Bible like a slice of watermelon (or like a buffet table) taking the sweet soft morsels and discarding the seed. The difference is, when we take some Biblical truth but discard the seed, we are rejecting the power of the Bible to produce new fruit in our lives.

One of the most rejected truths in the Bible is the truth that God saves us from sin (sin's penalty, pollution and power). People want the easily digested part of the word of God (also known as milk instead of meat). Too many people want the forgiveness of God but they don't want the fruit of the Spirit to transform them from death to life, from darkness to light, and they don't want to be conformed to the image of Jesus.

We generally think of little boys on the bank of a river, spitting out the seeds of a watermelon. The image is changed when it comes to spitting out the seeds of truth. I see people who hold themselves in high esteem, intellectually and spiritually, spitting out major portions of Biblical truth, because it is not as sweet to them as the feelgood religion, which they call salvation.

So, the next time some snooty, sinning religionist spits out great truths of the Bible by saying that those portions do not apply to Christians, just remember, they either have no taste for spiritual food or they willfully reject the whole counsel of God in exchange for cheap grace that does not save anyone.

2 Peter 1:2-12
2  Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,
3  According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
4  Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5  And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6  And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7  And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.
8  For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9  But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.
10  Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:
11  For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
12  Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth.