For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:10-11.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
In our last Life Lesson we continued considering prevailing prayer. Remember, you are not prevailing against Me, I am for you and give you good things as soon as you ask. I immediately grant all prayers that are made in accordance with My Word, but often there is resistance in the people, places or things that must first be moved into line for My Will to be done, and those things must be addressed in prayer.
When He came into the house, His disciples began questioning Him privately, “Why could we not drive it out?” And He said to them, “This kind cannot come out by anything but prayer.” Mark 9:28-29.
As My special treasure and royal priesthood you are pursuing the outcome I want in any situation, getting My Will done on earth as it is in Heaven. YOU ARE WORKING WITH ME TO MOVE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE OBSTACLES TO MY WILL BEING DONE AND PULLING DOWN THE STRONGHOLDS THAT THE DEVIL HAS ERECTED IN VARIOUS PEOPLE, PLACES, AND THINGS.
I want to repeat once again what prevailing prayer is, it is using your faith with Mine to obtain a miraculous result to which there is opposition from the world, the flesh, and the devil. It could be a hindrance that you find in yourself or another that is limiting the greatness of what I desire as the outcome in various situations. To do this kind of prayer, which taps into My power by your faith, you must know Me and trust Me, for that is what great faith is all about. When you have a relationship of love and trust with another, faith comes naturally, it is nothing you have to work on when you KNOW the other only acts with your best interests in mind and always hears your requests and cares.
Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. John 4:15-16.
That is why I tell you to give Me the honor of taking care of you, whatever concerns you, concerns Me as well, no matter how small or how large.
Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me. Psalm 50:15.
When you confessed and received Jesus as Lord you entered the everlasting Covenant in and through Him with Me. We now have a commitment to one another in a bond of intimate fellowship, a sacred trust that is formed in love that neither one of us can break. If you will note, those who understand covenant, such as Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, Peter, Paul, John, and above all Jesus, the relationship meant more than any worldly gain if it would hinder that relationship.
And in these Life Lessons we are looking closely at the prayer which Jesus entrusted you with as His disciples as a template of prayer to follow as His royal priesthood, that He taught to the first believers who became His body, the church, on earth. And in our first Life Lesson on this subject we covered the verses that consisted of the protocol and foundations of priestly prayer that brings My Will to earth by moving nations, cities, families, and individuals into My Will so that My Kingdom reigns upon the earth. In our last Life Lesson we began the verses that address relationship with Me which leads to provision, revelation, forgiveness, protection, direction, and expectation, with the verse “give us this day our daily bread,” and looked at one aspect of that request as seeking to know Me in the bread of life, the true bread from Heaven, which is found in Jesus, My Word become flesh, for you to eat and never die.
Today, as we pick up where we left off, we are going to go to another aspect of this request for daily bread. This request addresses many levels: spiritual, physical, eternal, and temporal food for spirit, soul, and body. All this verse contains is beyond the human mind to fully grasp, it must be spiritually discerned. The results to this request, however, manifest in the spirit and in the flesh, in the temporal and in the eternal, for this involves the Word of life, now and forever. And today we look at this request in the light of My Word as seed for the sower and bread for the eater producing the fruit of the seed you plant in your heart whose fruit blesses all.
You are born again from above by My Word, your mind is renewed by My Word so that you are transformed from glory to glory by My Word, you are saved by My Word, you are washed clean and pure by the water of My Word, you are healed by My Word, you are delivered from destruction by My Word, My Word gives light and understanding, and My Words are life to those who find them.
For it is not an idle word for you; indeed it is your life. And by this word you will prolong your days in the land, which you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. Deuteronomy 32:47
The first parable Jesus told was about seedtime and harvest. And this was the promise I made to Noah with the rainbow as well. Genesis 8:22. And Jesus explained that the seed the sower is sowing is My Word and the soil is the condition of the hearts of those who hear the Word. In that parable, there are four types of ground (hearts) on which the seed falls, and only one produced a harvest, and that in varying degrees of abundance. All the others either had the seed stolen by the devil when they heard it or choked off by the cares, obstacles, and temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil. This situation needs prayer that hearts will open to receive the seed and continue with it to harvest.
Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the Word implanted, which is able to save your souls. James 1:21.
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel. Ephesians 6:17-19.
How do you bring the seed given you to harvest and do not lose the seed sown before grown?
But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. James 1:22-25.
It is by not only hearing but also doing My Word that makes the seed grow to harvest and the more you do the Word the larger the harvest. Remember (and that is the next verse of the prayer), when you stand to pray or bring a gift to My altar you must first clear your heart of any unforgiveness and bitter roots. These things shut out the Word and there is no room for it to grow.
But you also need to know what the harvest is I am talking about, for My Word gives seed to the sower and bread to the eater and by your diligence in applying My Word you can increase your generous yield. I compare My Word to seed in that a seed contains the entire plan, indeed the very embryo, of its kind. A grain of wheat planted and grown will break out of its seed coat, first the root downward and then the shoot upward bearing the precious grain that gives more seed and makes the flour and substance of bread and other. Do you see? Seed for the sower and bread for the eater from the one grain that now is many.
For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:8-11.
The more you receive My Words into your heart, the more you will believe them, and the more you believe them, the more you will speak them, and the more you speak them, the more you will do them, and the more you do them, the greater will be the harvest of what was in the seed of the promise you planted. And as you do that, the more you will think My thoughts and the more like Me you become, for seeds produce in kind. Like any seed when planted and grown, My Words produce the promise in them, such as healing, provision, forgiveness, mercy, love, unification, edification, encouragement, and emancipation. My Word sown by you into others can produce the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Jesus give you eternal life and that life is in His Word. His Words are Spirit and life. The Word has the plan, the instruction, the skill and the production in it. In Jesus, who is MyWord sent to you to save and deliver you, are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Do you know now the enormity of what you are asking for when you say to Me, “Give us this day our daily bread.”? You are pressing in to know Me through My Son, the bread of life which I have given you in Him that can remake you to My image as you partake of Him, and you are receiving the seed for you to sow to grow the harvest to feed you and the hungry world with righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit and with My magnificent promises that make you partakers of My divine nature. You are planting Heaven on earth, first in your heart and then in the hearts of all who hear the fruit of your lips. Become a sower of seed in your prayers and in your words to yourself and others. I will give you precious Words to pray and to sow and grow as you ask for yourself and all the body of Christ and those who I have called that are still far off, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
I give you seed to sow and if you plant it in your heart and guard it from theft by the devil and from the troubles, trials, lusts, and temptations that come to choke it off, you will enjoy the harvest for if you will guard and keep it, the seed knows what to do to produce after its own kind.
And He was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows—how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” Mark 4:26-29.
Be like Me, a sower of seed. I sowed My Word among you and His Name is Jesus and though He came as One He did not return to Me void, but achieved the purpose for which I sent Him. He is the firstborn of MANY brethren. He bought you all and brought you all home to Me if you will only come.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:8-11.
My Will prospered in His hand. Isaiah 53:10. And you, His little flock, are in His Hand and in His Hand you are in Mine, for I was in Christ reconciling the world to Myself and I have entrusted to you who have received Him and been created anew by the implanted Word of truth with the ministry of reconciliation as My royal priesthood.
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-13.
Feed My sheep. Feed them the Word, the pure milk, meat, and honey of the Word. What you eat is what you become in physical appearance and it is true in the spirit as well.
Your words were found and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; for I have been called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts. Jeremiah 15:16.
I love you. Break up the fallow, stony ground and receive My Word and grow a harvest though perseverance. It will come, and that is for sure. My Word knows what to do in you. And so you pray, “Give us this day our daily bread!” Open your mouth wide and I shall fill it. What with? My Word! I have put My Words in your mouth to plant and establish My Kingdom in every heart and nation.
“I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt; open your mouth wide and I will fill it. Psalm 81:10.
That, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. Ephesians 4:22-23.
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12.
For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. James 3:16-18.