A note from Kelly King: Do you desire to live a more fruitful and abundant life this year? Do you want your leadership to have lasting impact? If so, I think you will be encouraged by Jessie Seneca’s article today. And here’s a secret…this isn’t just for leaders. It’s for all of us.
“And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” –Mark 4:20 (NASB)
What and who determines if you bear thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold fruit?
While reading through chapter four of the Gospel of Mark, I found myself asking multiple questions. Do my actions represent my beliefs? What does my life produce? Just how good is the good soil of my heart? For so long, I seemed to be under the impression that God determined the percentage of the fruit bore in my life. Yes, to an extent He does because all things are filtered through His hands and He blesses obedience, but the way you hear and receive His Word will measure the fold outcome. It is the responsibility of us—the hearer—to move out of the thirty fold realm into the 100 fold. So, I thought to myself, what does that actually look like? Are you and I living to our fullest potential? Do we produce 100 fold?
In Mark 4, you read about the four soils: hard, rocky, thorny, and good. What does your fruit look like? (See Matt. 13:18-23 also.)
- Hard = no response to the word sown
- Rocky = emotional response to the word sown
- Thorny = worldly response to the word sown
- Good = fruitful response to the word sown
We measure everything we hear. The Word of God responds to my measuring device. Mark 4:24 says that “the way ‘you’ hear it, the way ‘you’ measure and respond to it is the measure that it works in your life. God is not measuring this for you. The man got thirty fold because that is what he heard and responded to. Another man got sixty because that is what he heard and responded to. A thirty fold mentality never excels to 100 fold opportunities.”1 But we must remember that apart from Him, we can do nothing. We must stay connected to the vine, because it is the vine that produces the power, not the branches (John 15).
What do you and I need to do to live in the hundredfold (fullest potential) and produce a fruitful life?
Here are Six Steps to Fruitful Living:
1. Receive, believe, achieve.
Hear the Word of God (daily), believe it, and then act on it.
James 1:25: “But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works — this person will be blessed in what he does.”
2. Move beyond the past.
Don’t allow past attempts, failures, or fears to stop you from moving forward.
Ephesians 2:1-5: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously lived according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!”
3. Goal setter, goal keeper.
Make a list of what you want to accomplish and set deadlines. Be specific.
Proverbs 16:1,9: “The reflections of the heart belong to mankind, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD.”
“A person’s heart plans his way, but the LORD determines his steps.”
4. Know Your Why.
Know why you are doing what you are doing and be emotionally connected to the action.
1 John 4:4: “You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
5. Trust God with the outcome.
Do your part as God leads and allow Him to complete it.
Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do”
Jeremiah 29:11: “‘For I know the plans I have for you’ — this is the LORD’s declaration — ’plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.'”
6. Make the move.
Pray, pray, pray and take the step of faith needed to accomplish all God is calling you to.
Joshua 3:5: “Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, because the LORD will do wonders among you tomorrow.”
Joshua 3:13: “When the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the LORD, the Lord of the whole earth, come to rest in the Jordan’s water, its water will be cut off. The water flowing downstream will stand up in a mass.”
May it be our goal for 2020 to fully receive His Word into our hearts as we seek Him on a daily basis, believe in Him whom He has sent, and achieve what He has set before us.
“And may the Lord our God show us his approval and make our efforts successful. Yes, make our efforts successful!” –Psalm 90:17 (NLT)
Jessie is the founder of More of Him Ministries in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She has been leading women in the local community and churches for over twenty-five years. Jessie offers an annual women’s leadership Conference called SHE Leads. She has also worked with Lifeway as a Living Proof Live and Priscilla Shirer Live City Coordinator and Northeast Simulcast Specialist. She enjoys seeing women get into the Word of God and the transformation it brings into their lives. Jessie’s passion and wisdom is to use the gifts God has given her to speak into the lives of her listeners and readers. She is a wife and mother of two adult daughters and wonderful sons-in-law. Most days you can find her walking her two golden-doodles, Murphy and Bella.
1. Pastor Jerry Edmon, Family Worship Center, Elgin, TX
