Mark 4:1-9 Abundance

First Things: Devotions in Mark’s Gospel

Mark 4:1-9 Abundance

Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and that they may have it abundantly.” So, how’s it going? How is that abundance, that fruitfulness, working out in your life?

We wonder sometimes if we judge fruitfulness the same way God does. Because we often don’t see the results, the influence, of being a follower of Jesus. We want to count attendance in church, or souls saved, or lives changed, and yet the measurables are often lacking. We fear that we are missing the boat, and that God is grieved by our spiritual poverty, as evidenced by the scarcity rather than abundance of fruit.

Or is it possible that God takes notice of abundance and fruit that we often do not notice? Is there something more than the three B’s of church growth: building, baptisms, and bodies in the pews? Here we have to think in non-materialistic terms. We have to discern that which is not seen by human eyes, and which is thus hard to measure.

For instance, the Spirit is called the Comforter. He is the One who is tasked with lifting the downtrodden from the inside out. His work is best noticed in those who are lowest, closest to despair. How good are we at measuring the abundance of God’s comfort, as followers of Jesus are moved from the depths of depression and the edge of desperation? Because there is no shortage of God’s comfort. It is abundant.

And for those who are most comfortable, we may know the least about this flood of comfort that has sustained the meek and lowly of the church for centuries.

Or, think of God’s grace, which inhabits the heart, and makes the recipient gracious. How many people have been turned from bitterness to sweetness by this grace of God; from grudges to forgiveness; from stubbornness to willingness; from pride to humility? Can we even begin to count the ways and the cases? God’s grace is abundant. Scripture says that where sin abounds (and we are very conscious of that), grace super-abounds. 

So in our verse in this famous parable of Jesus, where so much seed is scattered with little lasting result, we find that some seed finds the good ground, and there it abounds, “thirty, sixty, one-hundred fold.” That is abundance. And I think we should be more careful to notice the non-material - the spiritual - ways that this abundance works.

And yes, we can continue to fervently pray for the numerical growth of the church as evidenced by conversions and baptisms, by discipleship and service. But those things may be more the shine on the fruit that exists below the surface.