ODB Reading | Our Daily Bread Devotional 29 August 2022 Message For Monday
ODB Reading | Our Daily Bread Devotional 29 August 2022 Today
READ MONDAY ODB DEVOTIONAL, OUR DAILY BREAD 29TH AUGUST 2022 WRITTEN BY KENNETH PETERSEN (OUR DAILY BREAD MINISTRIES)
TOPIC: Seeds of Time
KEY VERSE: Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop. Mark 4:20
TODAY’S SCRIPTURE: Mark 4:13–20
13 Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? 14 The farmer sows the word. 15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them.
16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word;
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ODB Reading | Our Daily Bread Devotional 29 August 2022
19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. 20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”
BIBLE IN A YEAR: Psalms 126–128; 1 Corinthians 10:19–33
ODB Reading | Our Daily Bread Devotional 29 August 2022 INSIGHT
The New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (the Synoptic Gospels) record from thirty-eight to forty-six distinct parables of Jesus. The majority appear in Luke, but many are repeated in the other gospels. Why did Jesus often speak in parables? He explains to His disciples: “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.
Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables: ‘Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand’ ” (Matthew 13:11–13). He said this to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy (see Isaiah 6:9–10). The truths of the Bible can only be understood by the Spirit. The apostle Paul later echoed this truth in 1 Corinthians 2:7–14.
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ODB Reading | Our Daily Bread Devotional 29 August 2022 MESSAGE
In 1879, people watching William Beal would likely think he was loony. They’d see the professor of botany filling twenty bottles with various seeds, then burying them in deep soil. What they didn’t know was that Beal was conducting a seed viability experiment that would span centuries. Every twenty years a bottle would be dug up to plant its seeds and see which seeds would germinate.
Jesus talked a lot about seed planting, often likening the sowing of seed to the spreading of “the word” (Mark 4:15). He taught that some seeds are snatched by Satan, others have no foundation and don’t take root, and yet others are hampered by the life around them and are choked out (vv. 15–19). As we spread the good news, it’s not up to us which seeds will survive. Our job is simply to sow the gospel—to tell others about Jesus: “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (16:15 esv).
In 2021, another of Beal’s bottles was dug up. The seeds were planted by researchers and some sprouted, having survived more than 142 years. As God works through us and we share our faith with others, we never know if the word we share will take root or when. But we’re to be encouraged that our sowing of the good news might, even after many years, be received by someone who will “accept it, and produce a crop” (4:20).
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ODB Reading | Our Daily Bread Devotional 29 August 2022, Monday
REFLECT: Consider an example of how you shared the good news with someone. How did that person respond? How are you praying for that person today?
PRAY: Dear God, please give me courage to share Jesus with friends and colleagues.
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Our Daily Bread Devotional 29th August 2022 || ODB Today Message . Our Daily Bread Ministries (ODB) is a Christian organization founded by Dr. Martin De Haan in 1938. It is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with over 600 employees. It produces several devotional publications, including Our Daily Bread. our daily bread booklet