Effortless Change

One day kneeling beside my bed in 1968, I began to pray, “Lord, what do I have to do to get from where I am to where You want me to be? I opened my eyes, and as I saw my Bible lying on the bed in front of me, I heard the Lord say this in my heart:  “just put My Word in your heart and it will do all the rest”.

People want to change and grow. It’s part of being made in the image of God. God put within us the knowledge that we are destined for more than we are experiencing. Believers and unbelievers desire to achieve more, including those who have achieved great success in the eyes of the world.

For those who are born again this desire intensifies. The Holy Spirit will cause us to be dissatisfied driving us towards change. Once we realize that God lives in us and wants to express Himself through us, its hard if not impossible, to be content with how we allow Him to do so.

Jesus was the only one who gave the world a perfect look at God through a person. We will never be the express image of God in the way Jesus was, but we all have the potential to express Him in a greater way than we have ever realised. In order to do that, we must change. Growth always means change. So if we are not experiencing any growth in or lives, it may be because we aren’t changing. Have you ever seen a plant that’s green and growing and not in a constant state of change? For the plant, it’s effortless, it just grows, and the change is evident to everyone. Our lives should be just like that, green, growing, changing, and evident to the world.

The question is, how does it happen? If you’re like a lot of Christians, you have probably tried to change many times but find yourself falling back into the same old patterns and experiencing the same old problems. That’s frustrating and more importantly, it’s a breeding ground for many of satan’s most devastating lies and traps. If we aren’t careful, we as Christians can feel more like failures than the lost. After all we have been told to be like Jesus, that’s a big task.

Change began for me in March 1968 when I had glorious encounter with the Lord. I had seen a glimpse of how awesome the Lord was and what He wanted me to be
I started changing rapidly, but was a million miles from the victorious life He had revealed.
At times, the process seemed so long and the goal so far that I despaired of ever making any progress in this lifetime, but then He directed me to focus on His Word.

That word from God has been my prime directive for the last forty years, and it has produced marvellous results. And the change this has produced has been nearly effortless. The only effort has been to stay focused on God’s Word.
Although the Lord spoke that to me in prayer, it was important to see it in the Word. He revealed and confirmed it to me through a parable in Mark 4:26-29.
He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28 All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. 29 As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”

GOD’S WORD HAS TO BE PLANTED LIKE A SEED IN OUR HEARTS

In this parable, Jesus used an example of seed, time and harvest which everyone understood, to illustrate truths about how God’s Word works, which very few understood.

First, He taught that God’s Word has to be planted like a seed in our hearts. Just as a seed doesn’t release its life until it is planted in the ground, God’s Word will not set us free until we get it into our hearts.

Second, the man in Jesus’ parable, who sowed the seed, slept and rose day after day. It takes time for a seed to geminate. You can’t plant a seed one day and expect to see it growing the next day. Just because there isn’t anything visible above the ground doesn’t mean the seed is not growing.
If you dig it up every day to see if anything is happening, it will never grow. You have to have faith that the seed will do what it was designed by God to do: produce its fruit in it’s time.

The Word of God works the same way.  When we meditate in God’s Word for one day, we can’t expect to see results the next day. And we can’t meditate in His Word one day a week and then live differently the other six days. That is like digging up the seed.
John 15:7-8 If you abide in me, and my Words abide in you, You shall ask what you will and it shall be done for you. This is how my Father is glorified; in that you bear much fruit so shall you be my disciples.
Next, Jesus shared one of the most important truths about this parable. He said, the seed will spring and grow up and you don’t know how. This is an amazing statement. No one knows how a seed works. Man with all his understanding, has not unlocked the miracle of a seed. Things can be made to look like a seed, but if it’s planted, it still won’t grow. For thousands of years people have planted seeds and reaped the harvest without understanding how it all works.

I don’t understand how the seed of God’s Word planted in our hearts works either, and I can’t explain how reading God’s Word differs from reading the words of some other book. I don’t comprehend it at all, but I know it works. I’ve experienced the supernatural life that God’s Word imparts. The Word is a seed that contains the very life of God. When it’s planted in your heart and left there, it will release that life. The only effort on your part is to take the time and make the effort to plant the seed. Then, the godly change you are looking for comes effortlessly as the seed of His Word takes root in your heart

This is such a simple truth that most people have missed it. Many are looking for some spectacular encounter with the Lord that will transform their lives instantly. They want to microwave their miracle rather than allow the time for the seed to produce fruit.
Some are willing to spend hours in prayer asking for a miracle instead of planting the Word of God in their hearts, which in time would produce the miracle.

Prayer is what water and fertiliser are to a seed. They help the Word release its life. But if you haven’t planted the seed, it doesn’t matter how much water and fertilizer you apply, the soil won’t produce fruit. It’s the seed that has life.
Prayer is not a substitute for planting the seed of God’s Word in your heart.
Prayer without the Word is religious at its best and complaining at the worst.

Romans 12:2 give us another key to effortless change.
And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.
The word transformed was translated from a Greek word metamorphosis. It’s describing the miraculous change of a caterpillar to a butterfly. If we want to be changed in nature and appearance as drastically as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, the way we do it is by the renewing of our minds. God’s Word is a primary way of accomplishing that.

In the natural, we recognise that we can’t have a harvest without planting seeds. But in the spiritual Christians try it all the time. Instead of going to the Word and meditating in the scriptures themselves they run to those who have spent time in the Word and ask them for help. It’s an attempt to shortcut the process of seed, time and harvest.
Then, if they don’t see results, they get confused and offended. God can meet needs through the faith of others, but its temporary and is His secondary way of touching people. God’s best is for them to take the seed of His Word and plant it in their hearts where it will naturally and effortlessly produce the changes they desire.

Have you ever seen an apple tree grown and travail to produce apples? Never! It’s the nature of an apple tree to bring forth its fruit. It’s your nature to produce fruit as well--spiritual fruit-and it happens naturally.
We do have a part to play; God has never planted a seed or tended the field for anyone. That’s the natural part that we must do. It’s up to us to consistently plant His Word in our hearts, abide in that Word, and then water and nourish it with prayer. If we’ll make the small effort, the miracle of the life in the seed of God’s Word will do the rest. Our lives will naturally and effortlessly change.

The Christian life is really not hard; it’s actually easy if we are abiding in God’s Word. The Word will transform us so that His perfect will for us comes to pass. That’s the promise of God’s Word.
Romans 8-6  to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Being spiritually minded is being Word minded. The seed is God’s Word. The soil is our hearts.
And the fruit that we all long for is godly change.  
This teaching is absolutely fundamental to the entire Christian walk. The lack of knowledge in this area is the reason so many Christians remain frustrated in their walk with the Lord.
Just as there is no growth in the natural realm without first planting a seed, there isn’t spiritual growth without planting the seed of God’s Word in your heart.
Taken from the Gospel Truth magazine Autumn & Winter 2010
Andrew Womack ministries