Devotion - 8 October - Sprout

A brief prayer is offered that you can add to your daily prayers this week. The scripture is from our Sunday Service Bulletin. We continue a seven Sunday series on “Making Disciples”.  Today, we continue a nature-based four step metaphor for making disciples: Plant, Sprout, Grow, Bear Fruit. Some of the narrative today comes from netbible.org, Constable’s Notes.

37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls

How can we get those seeds we planted last week, to start to sprout? I don’t know if you have ever raised a vegetable or flower garden, but if you raise it from seed, it can be a transformative experience. Almost all the species that I am familiar with, have seeds which do not look like a living thing. They are mainly shriveled up and brown [most are certainly not green!] and they look inert. But if you get them in the ground at the right temperature where there is a nutrient base and get some moisture, the seed will germinate and start to grow and sprout! In our text today, verse 38, Peter responds to the question of what should we do, by saying repent! To me, the metaphor for the process of transforming a non-Christian (a seed) into a sprouting Christian is repentance. Repentance is part of the process of believing. When a person believes in Christ, that person abandons false notions about the Savior and embraces the truth. That truth is that Christ is God’s provision for our eternal salvation. Once we repent and push up through the dirt [metaphor for sinful world] into the air that has the ingredients needed for photosynthesis we can start to grow on our own. We just need that burst of repentance to start our sanctification journey out of the muck. Sprouts need protection from beasts and bad weather to get them into a mature growing thing. Brand new Christians need the nurturing of fellow Christians much the same way. We should be on the lookout for “sprouting” new Christians!! Isn’t this a fun metaphor?