An Appointment with Christ: The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1)

My dear brothers and sisters, may the Lord bless you, this is Roberto Miranda speaking; and I greet you in the name of Jesus Christ. Before going into the study of the passage that God has placed in my heart, I want to share with you my gratitude to the Lord and to you also for allowing me every week to come and get closer to your lives and share the word of the Lord. I consider this a great privilege and I do it because I feel and have the conviction that this word of God that we share with you every week has power to transform your lives.

The word of God is alive and effective. The Bible says that "it is sharper than any two-edged sword", and that word when it enters our lives does transforming works, it is the very life of God that is entering our hearts and minds and operating radical changes in our personality. When we listen to the word of God with faith, with reverence and with humility letting its truth enter our hearts and that God fulfills the purpose he has by sending that word into our lives, that word will do wonderful things within us because it is the word of God and the Bible says "that the word of God never returns to him empty but always fulfills the purpose for which it was sent"; so you who listen to me every week remember that what you are listening to and receiving is the very life of God. It is not the word of man, it is not the word of Roberto Miranda because when I preach, I preach in the power and authority of the Holy Spirit, not trusting in my own strength, but trusting that I am simply a channel, an instrument to may that life-giving word of God enter your life and may divine energy do transformative works in your life.

The other thing I want to tell you is that the additional reason why I take the time to share this word over the airwaves is because I want to encourage our listeners to look deeper into a relationship. With God. I encourage you not to settle for simply listening to the radio and thus limit your relationship with God. I also want to encourage you to look for a church, to seek communication with other men and women who, like you, are interested in spiritual things.

It is important that the believer belongs to a family of human beings who have the same spiritual interests as one. It is important that you congregate. The Bible says that ¨ let us not stop assembling ¨ as some have by habit . To congregate means to 'meet regularly in the house of God', to have spiritual fellowship with other Christians, to share the word of God, to share spiritual life together, to learn from one another, to deal with one another because in that Christian relationship there is growth. . As we rehearse the truths of the word of God through the life of the Church, the life of the family of God, we put into practice the principles of the Gospel and do not limit ourselves only to theory. I have learned so much from my brothers and from the life of the Church through the years that I thank the Lord for the family of faith.

I want to tell you that it is not possible, it is not possible to be a good Christian without being part of a Christian community. Some rebel against that idea, but the Lord Jesus Christ left a church on earth, a church that is a family and no Christian is an island. We are all part of a continent, there is no such thing as lone rangers who simply follow God according to their own ideas and their own dictates.

The Christian life was designed by God to be lived in the context of a community of faith. The Lord Jesus Christ wants you to congregate, he wants you to go to a church, God wants you to live a life in communion like other Christians. It is the only way that you are truly going to be able to grow and reach the maturity that Christ wants for you.

I want to share with you, start sharing rather, because we are going to do it in the next few messages, Chapter 6 of Mark beginning with verse 30, the well-known passage of the multiplication of the loaves and fish.

Here we are told in verse 30, that ¨Then the apostles gathered with Jesus and told him everything they had done and what they had taught and he said to them: "come aside into a desert place and rest a while." little," because there were many who came and went so that they did not even have time to eat." From there begins this story about the multiplication of the loaves and fish, a well-known miracle from scripture, but what is interesting here in this part of the passage is this idea that the apostles met with Jesus and told him everything that happened. they had done and what they had taught. If we read the whole chapter we find that the disciples, these apostles had been sent by Jesus Christ to preach the Gospel to different villages in Palestine and they spent weeks in the field preaching the word and the Lord, before sending them, blessed them, instructed them, he gave them words of faith, he endowed them with supernatural power to heal the sick and expel demons and these men came out under the power of Christ and after a time of ministry they returned to the place from where they had come and met again with Jesus and he says that "they told the Lord everything they had done and what they had taught."

It is so important my brothers that the Christian life is lived in this way, leaving Jesus and returning to Jesus. That we at the beginning of the day take time to receive from Christ the power, wisdom and teaching that we need for the experiences that await us in the rest of the day and that at the end of the day, when we have finished the tasks of work and home and daily life, let's take time again to present Jesus the events of the day and seek from Him teaching, advice, perspective for the things we have experienced. And that while we are also in the cares and tasks and work of the day, we take time from time to time to once again raise our gaze towards God and remember that we are citizens of eternity and that we are living all the events of the day in the future. Mister.

It is important brothers that we live life as the word says in the spirit, that we live close to Jesus, that if we are going to do something, we first go to Jesus so that He commissions us, gives us strength, gives us blessings and that afterwards what we do, we do in the power of the Holy Spirit, not by our own strength.

These men went out to the life of service, sent by Jesus Christ, they did not depend on themselves, but they depended on Him and since they returned and finished their task they returned again and joined the Lord and told Him. That is, we see here a life lived in fellowship, in friendship, in intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ, that is one of the greatest truths of the Gospel. That the life that we believers live we have to live in Him, attached to Him, clinging to Him, full of Him, in intimate and continuous communication with the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord says in the Gospel according to Saint John "abide in me and I in you and you will bear much fruit." The Lord adds: "As the branch cannot stay away from the vine, so neither can we stay away from it." He says: "I am the vine, you are the branches, he who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing."

How important it is that the Christian life be lived in prayer, in communication with God, in continuous meditation on the word of God, seeking the strength that only God can give. Never try to live your life on your own strength, always consult with Christ, always seek from Him the strength and wisdom you need to succeed. May God bless you and may you reach that attitude of total dependence on Christ, always seeking to join Him and share with Him all the events of your life.