The Living Faith

In the Kingdom Jesus has established, God works and harvest His Fruits with us and sadly, without us also! This means, God's work will be carried out whether we cooperate or not. The stunning factor is that if we choose not to cooperate with God, God's plans will not be frustrated but we ourselves will be the losers.

God has sown the seed of his power, his love, his wisdom, his holiness, his sanctity, his joy, his peace already inside humanity. We are not fully sure how many centuries back he began this marvelous work. It was hidden; it was buried; it was watered, it was enlightened; it was nourished by the same Gardener for centuries. In general, Bible names this seed as God’s Word. He has sown his Word in all the environments of the universe-mountains, oceans, planets, stars, and particularly every human heart. When each creature grows from that Word as it is designed, He can transplant it, break or prune it if need be, as He desires.

As any seed takes its proper duration for its maturation, so does the seed God had sown took its own course of growth-sprouting, blossoming, flowering, and fructifying. While this God’s Seed took so many centuries to grow to its full structure at one point of human history, as the Bible loves to proclaim through Prophets and Apostles, it was none other than Jesus of Nazareth, Mary’s Son. A benevolent time came in his eternal creative works, God revealed that the Word he has sown in his creations is none other than his Beloved Son Christ. NT Books underscore it profusely. Especially we find in the Gospel of Mark a clear portray of this remarkable and mysterious fact being expounded through the ‘parable of the seed’ (Mk. 4: 26-34). Jesus, the God’s Seed, was hidden, simple and humble in appearance like the mustard seed, but always was in God and with God. (Jn. 1: 1-5)

The historical process of the Word becoming incarnate has become a model for every human being for how to make the seed of God, sown in our birth, sprout and bloom and grow to its full stature. The amazing factor in human creation is the unthinkable potential discovered in every human. If any individual cherishes the Word sown by God within oneself with loving tender care, they will, as trees portrayed in the Bible, put forth branches and bear fruit, and become a majestic cedar. Birds of every kind shall dwell beneath it, every winged thing in the shade of its boughs. (Ez. 17: 23) And as the Psalmist sings, “he/she shall flourish like the palm tree, like a cedar of Lebanon shall grow and shall bear fruit even in old age being vigorous and sturdy.” (92: 13-15)

When Jesus said ‘the kingdom of God’ he meant it was the power or glory or status or realm or environment of God that is present within us, in our midst, and is near us. He has emphasized through his parabolic teaching that this realm, environment of God, sown as a tiny little mustard seed at our conception and then watered, nourished and safeguarded by our personal, spiritual and religious efforts with purity of intention, will grow and bear solid and valid fruits if we remain with him always. That was the promise of our Master: “I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing.” (Jn. 15: 5)

Paul, who states that he was working out his salvation in fear and trembling and tension, is also never tired of advising us that those of us who earnestly work hard to manage our inner gardening of the God’s Seed, should be always courageous, although we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight; and we should be ready to face the judgment seat of Christ so that each may receive recompense, according to what we did in the body, whether good or evil.