What Jesus Did! 'The Power of Stories' — Matthew 13:34-35

Jesus' stories, or parables, were windows to God's truth. They both reveal and conceal. They conceal from those not seeking the truth, God, or the Kingdom. They reveal to those following Jesus — his disciples. But the revealing of these messages came through Jesus' time alone with his disciples as he explained God's mysteries to them. The message, however, was hooked into everyday life for them to easily remember and later awaken these truths when they saw them again in real life. From this point on, Jesus put the key focus of his energies and time on helping the disciples understand God's mysteries. But the parable of the soils reminded them that they chose whether or not they were soil fit for his seed and whether or not they would be fruitful. For us, the message is much the same: If we want to understand the mysteries of God's Kingdom, we must be willing to spend dedicated and concentrated time with Jesus. This is why Matthew wrote his Gospel in the first place. Don't let the year go by merely reading a few verses from Matthew's Gospel every day. Read it through at one sitting several times during the remainder of the year using different translations. Read the other Gospels as well. Get to know Jesus better and worship, serve, and reach out with the Good News to those who don't know Jesus. He longs to help us understand the deep things of God, but he can do it only if we spend dedicated time in his presence.