Passage Read: Matthew 13-14
Meditation Verses: 13:11-12
Thought
To understand the Word of God requires God's grace and mercy, which He clearly does not grant to everyone. It is a gift from God to be able to hear and understand His Word. Yet there is an expectation that all who have ears should hear what the Lord is saying. It should be every person's priority to understand the words of the Lord. As much as I would like everyone to understand and believe, however, it is not possible to make people understand by merely human means. Teaching and explaining and going over it again and again is pointless if God is not going to open a heart to understand. So Jesus didn't stay in one place for years and years in hope that in time more would understand. He was constantly on the move, going from place to place to teach, in effect, searching for those whom His Father had granted understanding, not waiting for them to eventually "get it." He would return often to places, perhaps to pick up any new people His Father had enabled, or to reach additional people in those communities, but He never parked in one place for long.
Application
The compulsion to reach as many as possible kept Jesus moving. The priority was not to make people understand, but to bring the Gospel to as many as possible. Understanding could only come to those whom God had called and enabled, so to linger over any individual or any group that tried but couldn't understand was pointless. Let them keep coming, sure, but if God doesn't open their heart to understand, what can I do? It's arrogant to think I can break through their blindness by my persistence or by my cleverness. And to let such a one, no matter how eager, to consume excessive amounts of my time is to allow them to distract me from the greater mission. Those granted understanding reveal themselves, just as surely as those who aren't granted understanding reveal themselves. I need to be careful not to feed my ego by settling where people shower me with attention but can't hear and aren't changed by God's Word. My commission is to build God's kingdom, and that is done by continually searching out those in whom He's working.