We need to remember when we are preaching and teaching that while we may be orienting people to the truth of the manual, they do not enter the Kingdom until the Divine Seed is conceived in them. For this reason our practice of counting and recording how many people are "saved" is unrealistic. We actually mean how many people have assented to the facts we have presented. Whether the Seed of the Kingdom was planted in them and whether it will bear lasting fruit is the information that by rights should be recorded. But this is not as easy to do.

As we sow the Seed of the Kingdom, some falls on people whose heart is so hardened that the seed remains on top of the ground. Sooner or later the demons will come and remove the Seed lest it germinate.

Other people are superficial. The Seed germinates. However their conduct is all in a show of religion. They do not take the time in prayer to send down roots into God. When affliction or persecution brings pain to them the Seed perishes from lack of water.

The Seed perishes! What is the Seed? The Seed is Christ, the Kingdom of God. It perishes if we do not patiently pray and follow the Lord. Whether or not we still retain our doctrinal position, the Kingdom has perished in us. No lasting fruit has been borne. The branch is cut from the Vine.

There are numerous dead branches in the Christian churches, as will be revealed in the age of moral horrors that is coming upon us. They are not living in daily interaction with Jesus Christ. They were cut from the Vine years ago.

Can you see now why it is vain to place so much emphasis on our doctrine when the real issue is the forming of Christ in us?

Other Seed falls on soil deep enough to permit germination. But like weeds in a garden, the worries of the world and the deceitfulness of riches crowd out the Seed and it perishes. No permanent fruit is produced. The branch is cut from the Vine.

Then the Seed falls on honest and good hearts. Some with patience bring forth a thirtyfold yield. Some, a sixtyfold yield. Some, a hundredfold yield.

The yield is Christ—Christ formed in us; the Kingdom of God formed in us.

Why does the yield differ from person to person? Because some are more careful than others to nourish the plant. The plant is nourished as we pray, meditate in the Scriptures, and obey God implicitly.

Every believer is invited to reap Christ a hundredfold. Whether he does or not depends on the diligence he applies to abiding in Christ each day.

God plays no favorites. As we sow we shall reap.

The believers in Galatia were being lured back into the Law of Moses (more wrestling over the manual). Paul labored that Christ might be formed in them, knowing that all doctrinal issues are cleared up as Christ comes to maturity in us. The true knowledge of God does not come through study but only as Christ is formed in us and dwells in us.

To be continued.