Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Conclusion to Series on Kingdom Instruction
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Conclusion to Series on Kingdom Instruction
Conclusion to Series on Kingdom Instruction
David W Palmer
(Luke 9:62 NLT) But Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”
As we conclude this series on Kingdom Instruction, our Master trainer is reminding us to keep our hand on the plow, keep our focus on Jesus and the furrow we are plowing today, and to never even look back. Plowing is a form of repentance; it is a breaking up of any hard areas of stubborn resistance to God’s rule in our hearts—preparing our inner man to receive God’s authoritative, ruling word.
First, what Jesus says in this verse obviously shows us that it doesn’t take a complete going back to your old life to rule yourself unfit for his kingdom; our Lord said that even looking back is enough to demonstrate that we are unsuitable.
Second, if a person has their hand on the plow, even though they have a power-source pulling it—in their case an ox or a horse—their responsibility is to keep it going straight. They have to keep each new furrow equidistant from the previous one, or the plowing doesn’t achieve its desired result, some hard places may remain hard, and the crops won’t be maximized. This takes full focus. For us, even though the Holy Spirit is providing the power for our “plow,” if we don’t keep ourselves fully focused on the process, even his infinite power will be ineffective—if we are not plowing in the right place.
Perhaps, the most important point for us in this picture today is the idea that we have to keep on plowing—continuously. In other words, plowing is not just a one-off event; it’s not something we do only at the beginning of our walk with Jesus. We need to continue grinding away at the hard places of our hearts every day.
Empowered by the Holy Spirit, and guided by the word of God, we need to keep our hand on the plow and keep focused on digging, disturbing, and overturning our fallow ground:
(Hosea 10:12 NLT) “I said, ‘Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.’”
I guess this process will not be completed while we are on this planet. We will always need to stay on the cutting edge of breaking up some hard, stubborn, rebellious, rocky places in our hearts. Like the broad, well-trodden path, we have parts of our soft-soiled hearts that get trodden down and walked on daily. We can so easily harden ourselves over the offenses and challenges that come our way. Jesus said that the only way to life is through a narrow gate, and along a very challenging (constricted) path: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Despite setbacks, challenges, difficulties, and wounds, keep plowing—be fervent, diligent, and unrelenting with breaking up the hard places of your heart. This is a continuing and ongoing process.
Don’t ever look back—even if it seems easier back there and more fun. Never yield to the enemy’s deceptive thought: “It’s so hard to keep pressing on—hurting and healing, losing vision and regaining it, fighting to overcome, continuing to forgive time and time again. Can’t I just stop all of this now and rest until Jesus returns?” No! That’s a deception! Keep looking forward; keep your eyes on Jesus, the living Word; and keep your focus on a fully fruitful heart, plus a larger and larger harvest from the extra seeds you can sow into freshly plowed soil. Keep plowing, continue to sow, and always be expanding your field.
Jesus expects us to be fruitful through faith:
(Hebrews 10:39 NKJV) But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
Here, drawing back is contrasted with believing. This is showing us that true faith in God has us expanding forward—plowing up the hard and unchallenged places in our hearts, and then sowing new seeds, and reaping more faith, holiness, love, and increasing Christlikeness manifested in and through our lives.
Let’s especially have our hand on the plow, our eyes focused on Jesus and the current furrow; and let’s invite the Holy Spirit’s full power, as we review the lessons from our Master apprentice-maker that we have seen in this series. We have looked at:
Through his parables and apprentice training, we have gained from Jesus’s Kingdom Instruction. Perhaps one of the take home points to remember is that there are only two kingdoms in the spirit realm: God’s kingdom—the true and rightful Lord, Father, and King of the human race; and Satan’s kingdom—the god of this world, the pretender to the throne of the universe.
Because of the fall of Adam and Eve, Satan ascended to the throne of men’s hearts, and has ruled the world and its system through humankind ever since. Having established his kingdom on earth, he is now desperately trying to defend it against the unstoppable advance of God’s kingdom through Jesus and his word.
This is why Jesus’s kingdom instruction—primarily through his kingdom parables—is of such vital importance. He wants us to know what is truly going on behind the scenes, in the spirit realm.
We have a great God, overflowing with goodness, full of love, forgiveness, and grace; he wants to flood us with his life, and overwhelm us in his blessing. On the other hand, there is a ruthless, deceiving, killing thief as the alternative king. His only objective is for his own aggrandizement, pride, and independence from God. Satan is the original rebel; he was a murderer from the beginning, and he is the father of lies:
(John 8:44 NKJV) “… He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”
Jesus set up his church as his governmental executive on earth—with vice-regent authority to reign over this planet in his name. He trained his apprentices to lead it. Now, our King Jesus wants you and me actively involved in advancing his kingdom against the enemy and his strongholds—both those inside our thinking and those in the world system around us. In other words, Jesus wants us to get on with the job of ruling the world and meeting the needs of people—all via his living word and our faith in it. Remember: without faith it is impossible to please him (Heb. 11:6).
Our King also wants us to understand that he rules through his word. He intends his word to rule the whole of humankind. But he needs us to realize that this can only occur by him planting his ruling, authoritative word into our hearts like seeds, and for it to grow to maturity there through our nurture of it. Jesus has called us to be word farmers, growing an increasing variety of harvests from the word-seed of his kingdom. This is the only way his kingdom can come on earth, so he needs us to understand and to cooperate with him in this process:
(Psalm 68:11 NKJV) “The Lord gave the word; Great was the company of those who proclaimed it.”
(Acts 12:24 ESV) “But the word of God increased and multiplied.”
(Matthew 25:21 NKJV) “His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’”
(Genesis 28:3 CSB) “May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you so that you become an assembly of peoples.”
Thank you for investing your time and energy into reading, “Jesus’s Training Track for His Apprentice Leaders, Series 5: Kingdom Instruction.” I pray that your experience has gone beyond the written words to a daily walk with Jesus, and that you have been his leadership apprentice along your journey with him.
God bless you,
David W. Palmer
P.S. Our next series starts on Monday: “Series 6, Devotion, Faith, and Prophecy.” It’s all based on Jesus and his discipling / apprenticing input into his original twelve apprentices.
View all episodes
By DAVID W. PALMERConclusion to Series on Kingdom Instruction
David W Palmer
(Luke 9:62 NLT) But Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”
As we conclude this series on Kingdom Instruction, our Master trainer is reminding us to keep our hand on the plow, keep our focus on Jesus and the furrow we are plowing today, and to never even look back. Plowing is a form of repentance; it is a breaking up of any hard areas of stubborn resistance to God’s rule in our hearts—preparing our inner man to receive God’s authoritative, ruling word.
First, what Jesus says in this verse obviously shows us that it doesn’t take a complete going back to your old life to rule yourself unfit for his kingdom; our Lord said that even looking back is enough to demonstrate that we are unsuitable.
Second, if a person has their hand on the plow, even though they have a power-source pulling it—in their case an ox or a horse—their responsibility is to keep it going straight. They have to keep each new furrow equidistant from the previous one, or the plowing doesn’t achieve its desired result, some hard places may remain hard, and the crops won’t be maximized. This takes full focus. For us, even though the Holy Spirit is providing the power for our “plow,” if we don’t keep ourselves fully focused on the process, even his infinite power will be ineffective—if we are not plowing in the right place.
Perhaps, the most important point for us in this picture today is the idea that we have to keep on plowing—continuously. In other words, plowing is not just a one-off event; it’s not something we do only at the beginning of our walk with Jesus. We need to continue grinding away at the hard places of our hearts every day.
Empowered by the Holy Spirit, and guided by the word of God, we need to keep our hand on the plow and keep focused on digging, disturbing, and overturning our fallow ground:
(Hosea 10:12 NLT) “I said, ‘Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.’”
I guess this process will not be completed while we are on this planet. We will always need to stay on the cutting edge of breaking up some hard, stubborn, rebellious, rocky places in our hearts. Like the broad, well-trodden path, we have parts of our soft-soiled hearts that get trodden down and walked on daily. We can so easily harden ourselves over the offenses and challenges that come our way. Jesus said that the only way to life is through a narrow gate, and along a very challenging (constricted) path: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Despite setbacks, challenges, difficulties, and wounds, keep plowing—be fervent, diligent, and unrelenting with breaking up the hard places of your heart. This is a continuing and ongoing process.
Don’t ever look back—even if it seems easier back there and more fun. Never yield to the enemy’s deceptive thought: “It’s so hard to keep pressing on—hurting and healing, losing vision and regaining it, fighting to overcome, continuing to forgive time and time again. Can’t I just stop all of this now and rest until Jesus returns?” No! That’s a deception! Keep looking forward; keep your eyes on Jesus, the living Word; and keep your focus on a fully fruitful heart, plus a larger and larger harvest from the extra seeds you can sow into freshly plowed soil. Keep plowing, continue to sow, and always be expanding your field.
Jesus expects us to be fruitful through faith:
(Hebrews 10:39 NKJV) But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
Here, drawing back is contrasted with believing. This is showing us that true faith in God has us expanding forward—plowing up the hard and unchallenged places in our hearts, and then sowing new seeds, and reaping more faith, holiness, love, and increasing Christlikeness manifested in and through our lives.
Let’s especially have our hand on the plow, our eyes focused on Jesus and the current furrow; and let’s invite the Holy Spirit’s full power, as we review the lessons from our Master apprentice-maker that we have seen in this series. We have looked at:
Through his parables and apprentice training, we have gained from Jesus’s Kingdom Instruction. Perhaps one of the take home points to remember is that there are only two kingdoms in the spirit realm: God’s kingdom—the true and rightful Lord, Father, and King of the human race; and Satan’s kingdom—the god of this world, the pretender to the throne of the universe.
Because of the fall of Adam and Eve, Satan ascended to the throne of men’s hearts, and has ruled the world and its system through humankind ever since. Having established his kingdom on earth, he is now desperately trying to defend it against the unstoppable advance of God’s kingdom through Jesus and his word.
This is why Jesus’s kingdom instruction—primarily through his kingdom parables—is of such vital importance. He wants us to know what is truly going on behind the scenes, in the spirit realm.
We have a great God, overflowing with goodness, full of love, forgiveness, and grace; he wants to flood us with his life, and overwhelm us in his blessing. On the other hand, there is a ruthless, deceiving, killing thief as the alternative king. His only objective is for his own aggrandizement, pride, and independence from God. Satan is the original rebel; he was a murderer from the beginning, and he is the father of lies:
(John 8:44 NKJV) “… He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”
Jesus set up his church as his governmental executive on earth—with vice-regent authority to reign over this planet in his name. He trained his apprentices to lead it. Now, our King Jesus wants you and me actively involved in advancing his kingdom against the enemy and his strongholds—both those inside our thinking and those in the world system around us. In other words, Jesus wants us to get on with the job of ruling the world and meeting the needs of people—all via his living word and our faith in it. Remember: without faith it is impossible to please him (Heb. 11:6).
Our King also wants us to understand that he rules through his word. He intends his word to rule the whole of humankind. But he needs us to realize that this can only occur by him planting his ruling, authoritative word into our hearts like seeds, and for it to grow to maturity there through our nurture of it. Jesus has called us to be word farmers, growing an increasing variety of harvests from the word-seed of his kingdom. This is the only way his kingdom can come on earth, so he needs us to understand and to cooperate with him in this process:
(Psalm 68:11 NKJV) “The Lord gave the word; Great was the company of those who proclaimed it.”
(Acts 12:24 ESV) “But the word of God increased and multiplied.”
(Matthew 25:21 NKJV) “His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’”
(Genesis 28:3 CSB) “May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you so that you become an assembly of peoples.”
Thank you for investing your time and energy into reading, “Jesus’s Training Track for His Apprentice Leaders, Series 5: Kingdom Instruction.” I pray that your experience has gone beyond the written words to a daily walk with Jesus, and that you have been his leadership apprentice along your journey with him.
God bless you,
David W. Palmer
P.S. Our next series starts on Monday: “Series 6, Devotion, Faith, and Prophecy.” It’s all based on Jesus and his discipling / apprenticing input into his original twelve apprentices.