Mark 4:13 and becoming potters, harvesters, and masterbuilders

[martincisneros]

Originally a post for another thread, but I became a tad more detailed than I intended and decided to just go ahead and start the new thread on it.

It would awesome to be sowing seed then look up to see a big speeding harvester right on my heels harvesting faster than I could sow, even so what does that have to do with an alternative to the current financial system?

Are you saying we need to go to a farm supply and equipment retail outlet and purchase speeding harverters?

I'm going to deal with this subject in another thread when I get all of my search terms in the New Testament figured out.  And 'cause there's not uniformity of translations, then that might vary translation by translation, so, I'm needing to put together something that'll work for everybody 'cause someone mentioned the other day my sounding like certain ministries.  And I nearly replied in one of my replies that in the degree to which I sound like them, myself and them are merely sounding like the New Testament, but anything other than the sovereignty subject is so alien to most Universalists that I really need to start at the beginning with where I get all of this. 

Strong's Concordance words that would come to mind for the New Testament are: seed; thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and hundredfold (which are harvest terms); abound (which is another harvest term); faith, grow,  planted, watered, increase, hope, partakers, rooted.  And the list might go on and on, so I'm needing to prioritize something simple to put together on this in a new thread.  Essentially all of those terms are harvest terms.  Jesus said that the whole Kingdom was compared to a seed, so whether you're talking about:

7Therefore, as ye abound in every thing, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also. (2Corinthians 8:7)

Faith, utterance, knowledge, diligence, love for the ministry gifts, and the graces of giving and receiving that he's explaining in that chapter and in the one following are things that we cultivate as a seed.  We abound in them or we forfeit.  2Corinthians 8:8 says that all of them are the test of our love.  And these and other Scriptures make it clear that any grace you don't know about and pursue in the Kingdom according to the harvest principles of the New Testament, then you'll not walk in it, whether it's the graces regarding the defense and/or confirmation of the Gospel (Philippians 1:7) or.... 

Anything that Jesus said you'd have a hundredfold in this life, you ought to be having a hundredfold on and not be just content with the persecutions and eonian life 'cause Jesus sandwiched those together and if you're amiss in any of them, then any rational mind would have the right to question whether the others were in their right place in one's life or not since they are governed by and grow by the same spiritual laws that the New Testament teaches.  If you're leaking oil, then you know to jump on that, or you're going to fry the engine and anything else that comes to mind of something that could possibly even in passing need that oil depending on the type of engineered system you're talking about, whether a car, boat, airplane, or whatever.  Don't let your hundredfold leak any more without pouncing on it.

Everything in the Kingdom; everything that's ever used in the Kingdom is a seed, otherwise you've got the two problems of it not really being a Kingdom and that's a vain word in the New Testament that's fraudulently spoken to convey a wrong/erroneous idea, or you wind up asserting that Jesus didn't know what He was talking about.  The Apostles said to Him on at least one occasion to increase their faith, and His reply to them was neither 'yes' nor 'no' but He immediately said that if you had faith as a seed, then you'd say....  So, our saying grows up and becomes greater than all herbs so that the birds of the air rest in it's branches or are strangled in the hurricane, and of course James 3 verifies this with saying that it turns the wheel of nature. 

Anything that pertains to a believer's life, whether relationships, money, evangelism, miracles, thanksgiving -- anything that any part of the New Testament would indicate could be a fruit of the spirit, or a hundredfold, is something that you have to handle very diligently and very delicately to make sure you're always abounding.  All grace in 2Corinthians 9 means all abounding, or growth, in 2Corinthians 8 in faith, utterance, knowledge, diligence, love for the ministry gifts, and the graces of giving and receiving.  The grounded and built up language of the New Testament is likewise talking about the same thing. 

This is the practicality of the parable of the talents, etc.  He gave you a Bible full of seed.  What did you do with it, where your character, evangelism, relationships are concerned?  He gave you a paycheck.  What did you do with it to get a hundredfold?  Again, if Jesus wasn't just spitting in the wind...  From the handling of every storm in our lives, according to Mark 4 and Matthew 7, to everything else you can think of that would come on the radar -- again, if and only if it's genuinely a Kingdom, and if and only if Jesus knew what He was talking about in asserting that it's a seed -- then the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus applies, which as you dig deeper is the law of sowing and reaping and it's relation to how His High Priestly ministry operates in your life.  If you had faith as a mustard seed, you would say, and Hebrews 3 calls Jesus the High Priest of our confession, that 1Corinthians 3 and 2Corinthians 9 says gives the increase.  Revelation 2 goes on to talk about our ruling the nations with a rod of iron and being the potters of the clay if we're overcoming.  And how are we overcoming?  Right here.  Sowing and reaping of everything that pertains to life and sowing and reaping of everything that pertains to godliness.

And because I became more detailed in this than I intended to, I'll go ahead and make this the introductory post elsewhere.

3We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth; (2Thessalonians 1:3)

58Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. (1Corinthians 15:58, although some try to say that our work is in vain.  Not according to this and other passages to the same purpose.  The problems are in trying to work our creeds, emotions, or anything else other than the plow of the Kingdom.)

he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1Corinthians 9:10)

[martincisneros]

With the passage that I mention from Revelation 2:26-27, on our handling of clay, we're not just the destroyers of the New Covenant if you think about it carefully.  2Timothy 2 talks about our development of the type of vessel that we'll be.  And Jeremiah 31:27-28 talks about how as the Lord was formerly a destroyer, or someone that would plow under, now He's building and planting and Romans 8 calls us joint-heirs with Him if we'll bare the heat of the day with the plow.