{"id":6890,"date":"2020-11-20T15:47:16","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T05:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=6890"},"modified":"2020-11-20T15:47:17","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T05:47:17","slug":"preparing-our-hearts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/preparing-our-hearts\/","title":{"rendered":"Preparing our Hearts"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Preparing our Hearts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapted from a sermon by Fr Daniel Fanous <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Passage Luke 8:4-8<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Gospel of the sower is a well-known parable recounted\nnumerous times throughout the year. However, there is something special that is\nmentioned right at the beginning of the parable which is often overlooked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to Him from every city,\u201d<\/em> Luke 8:4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was not speaking to the disciples or a specific selection\nof people, He was speaking to multitudes, to thousands. These words which He\nspoke reached every single one of them. Similarly, Christ\u2019s words are for every\nsingle on of us 2,000 years later. By speaking to these multitudes, He teaches\nus that this is not some parable, not some story aimed at a different audience.\nWe are the ground, and His words are for us who listen to His word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWhen He had said these things He cried, \u201cHe who has ears to hear, let him hear!\u201d\u201d<\/em> Luke 8:8<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often, we find ourselves hearing Christ\u2019s words,\nbut how often do we listen to His word. How many times have we heard His Gospel\nand then forgotten about it, or zone out? The multitudes suffered from this,\nwith Christ\u2019s words entering one ear and leaving through the other. His words were\nnot entering their hearts. Christ is trying to plant His word in us, but it is\nup to us whether we choose to truly listen to His word or to reject it and let\nit fall away, just like the seed that fell on the pathway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we read over this Gospel, we may tend to\nbelieve that the sower is the scripture or the Bible or a sermon we hear. But it\nis much more than this. The sower represents the very person of Christ. He sows\nHimself in us. No matter what ground we are, whatever state we are in, He still\nplants Himself unconditionally. Thus, it is up to us to receive him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all strive to be like the good ground, bearing\nfruit tenfold, twenty-fold or even a hundred-fold. We hope that our hearts will\nbe ready to receive Christ joyfully. But how many of us till our grounds. How\nmuch of our daily effort goes towards preparing our ground, our hearts so that\nwe can receive His blessing. Christ\u2019s will for us is not a passive one where we\nsimply hope that we can attain eternity with Him. Our faith is a proactive\nfaith whereby we are called to live out His word each day, growing closer to\nHim each day and preparing our hearts to accept Him each day we awake. If we\nseek to be like the good ground, we must prepare each day to accept Him into our\nhearts. Only then can we be saved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Preparing our Hearts Adapted from a sermon by Fr Daniel Fanous Passage Luke 8:4-8 This Gospel of the sower is a well-known parable recounted numerous times throughout the year. However, there is something special that is mentioned right at the beginning of the parable which is often overlooked. \u201cAnd when a great multitude had gathered, … Continue reading “Preparing our Hearts”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,469,470,471,468],"class_list":["post-6890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-christ","tag-ground","tag-hearts","tag-prepare","tag-sower"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6890"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6933,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6890\/revisions\/6933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}