“He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.””
You only need a little bit of the Kingdom of God in your heart for it to have a good chance to work its way into your whole life.
Mark 4:10 When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11 He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables
Jesus told His disciples that he’d give them the secret to the Kingdom of Heaven in the parable of the seed and sower found in Matthew 13 and Mark 4. He famously teaches about the four conditions of the heart and concludes that the receptivity of your heart to His word determines the yield of that Word in your life. In other words, the receptivity of your heart to His word will determine the degree of the kingdom you’ll experience in this life.
He makes other points but wraps up the parable by explaining to them how seeds work. The farmer casts seed in the ground, goes to sleep, wakes up, and knows not how but the seed produces after its own kind.
Rest and Trust
This is your job, go to sleep, wake up, and tend to the Word of God in your heart daily because this process determines how much of the kingdom of God you’ll experience in this life. Sometimes it’s 30 fold, sometimes 60 fold, and sometimes 100 fold. There is no magic formula to get the 100 fold, contrary to what you may hear on TV.
What makes the difference is the degree to which you take heed to what you have heard. Pay attention to the Word of God as you read and ponder, that meditative process will determine the degree to which it bears fruit in your life.
The measure you meet will be measured back to you. Those who understand and apply their heart to the process will receive more and more. Those who neglect this process will lose even what they have. It’s not God giving more or taking away, it’s the process of the seed in the soil or the Word of God in your heart.
If you want more of the kingdom of God in your life, give good measure to the Word in your heart. If you want less, continue to neglect the intentional cultivation of God’s Word in your heart.
It only takes a little bit of the Word to work its way through your heart, but the measure you meet makes the difference. The kingdom of God is increasing. The Word of God works, but only in receptive ground. Most of the world is closed off or hard of heart to God’s living Word. Those who know the mystery are the ones who experience God’s provision and promises no matter what comes our way.
You don’t have to convince God to give you His kingdom, it’s His good pleasure. You can’t make the Word work, it works on its own. You can’t force the kingdom to work for you through effort in any capacity. The ONLY thing you can do is put in the work of faith to be persuaded of God’s character and the agent of His living Word in your heart and life.
“He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.””
The yeast is His Word, the flour is your heart and the dough is the manifested kingdom in your life that brings nutrition. You work the Word like yeast into flour in your heart. You don’t make the yeast spread and expand, it does that on its own. You don’t make the dough become bread, it responds on its own to the yeast. But you do need to fold the yeast into the flour, smoothly and evenly into every corner of your heart and mind. This is the mystery of the Kingdom of God. It works on its own, but you must be receptive and hide it in your heart.
