DaySpring Daily Word of Inspiration: Isaiah 32:17 – The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.
As we examine our daily activities, we’re constantly reminded of the sacrifice that we need to be truly in God’s will. The empting of ourselves to have God truly planted in us is the only way that we will reap the benefits of his goodness. How does one empty themselves and make room for God? We have to tear down, throw away and completely destroy everything that we were before Christ entered into our lives so that he can be the sole entity in our lives.
Our devotional for today seeks directly to this very same thing. The scripture picks up in the middle of the story but the meaning is absolutely critical to understand. Verse 16 of this same chapter speaks of God’s righteousness being planted or living in fertile soil. This for us means that God’s seed is the righteousness and our hearts are the soil. For anyone who has done any farming or knows any farmers or their techniques, it is essential to cultivate the land to get it prepared for a time of planting seeds. This is an example of us as we’re encountering Christ. Our hearts are being softened by the truth of the gospel and we’re beginning on a path that takes us from harvesting the fruits of our sinful nature to recognizing that what is planted in us isn’t any good at all.
This is when the combination of the Holy Spirit, God’s word and you start to go through your fields (heart) and begin plucking out all those things that aren’t supposed to be there. The Holy Spirit suggests the uprooting of our moral sinful characters, God’s word confirms that the trait has to be trashed and it’s up to us to make the decision to remove the sin from our lives. Once there is a clearing, God is able to come behind us and start the process of planting new seed so that the fruits of his planting are produced.
So what is God trying to plant in our lives? The scriptures point to God planting authentic righteousness in our fields (heart). As we move along from day to day, extracting the sinful deeds that have grown up in our fields (hearts), God comes behind us and plants a seed of righteousness! All of the areas that were dead and producing death in our lives have been replaced with seeds of righteousness. As our sin was producing death, God comes and plants seed that produce peace; peace with God, peace of God and peace from God. The transformation is being completed. However, we all have massive fields that have been producing bad crops for a long time. The work isn’t done in our lives and every day that God gives you on this Earth is another day that he gives us to extract the bad crops and allow him to plant good seed into our lives.
Now comes the tricky part. Earlier we talked about the combination of 3 entities at work in identifying our bad crops so we could extract them. We have to take into account that we play a role in the trashing or eradication of our bad produce. It is up to us to recognize what the Spirit and God’s word is pointing out in our lives; which needs to be done away with and remove it. We must remember that God is willing to plant in our lives and he has abundant seed to share but if we never clear a path for him to plant into, how can we expect to receive crops of peace?
Today, we pray that your faith is put to work in clearing the path in your heart for God to lay down seeds of righteousness in you so that the production of peace is so abundant that it affects other people’s fields (heart) in a great way for the advancement of God’s Kingdom. We can’t reap the benefits of God’s righteousness if he doesn’t have any place to put his seeds. Let’s begin to clear out the sinful junk in our field (heart) so that God can transform us from the inside out and have peace reign in our lives forever. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!