New Testament:
Matthew 12:46-13:23
Old Testament:
Genesis 39:1-41:16
Wisdom & Instruction:
Psalm 17:1-15
Proverbs 3:33-35
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New Testament: Matthew 12:46-13:23
Summary: Jesus redefines true family as obedient followers and explains why God’s Word bears fruit only in receptive hearts, exposing shallow, distracted, and hardened responses to truth.
Hearing God and Walking Away
Standing close to Jesus does not mean you belong to Him.
Yesterday, Jesus stripped the mask off religious pride and showed that mercy matters more than ceremony. Today, He goes further. He tells us plainly who is in His family and why so many people hear God’s Word and walk away unchanged.
Jesus is teaching when His mother and brothers come looking for Him. The crowd expects Him to pause, maybe step aside. He does neither. He looks at His disciples and says, “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother” ~Matthew 12:50 KJV. That statement cuts clean. Blood does not save you. Proximity does not save you. Obedience reveals who belongs to Him.
Then Jesus walks down to the water and starts telling stories. Not soft stories. Exposing ones. Scripture tells us He speaks in parables because many people hear God’s Word without wanting God Himself. “This people’s heart is waxed gross… lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted” ~Matthew 13:15 KJV. The problem is not hearing. It is refusal to repent.
The Parable of the Sower leaves no room for excuses. The seed is good. The Word is powerful. The difference is the soil. Some hearts are hard. The Word never sinks in. Some are shallow. They burn hot and die fast. Some are crowded. Worries, money, and distractions strangle what God planted. Only one soil produces fruit, the one that hears the Word and holds it through pressure, loss, and time ~Matthew 13:23 ESV.
Jesus is not talking about unbelievers only. He is warning everyone who listens. Emotional responses are not faith. Fast starts are not endurance. Fruit does not come from enthusiasm but from submission. The Word that saves is the Word that stays.
This passage demands honesty. You can sit under truth for years and never belong to Christ. You can quote Scripture and still resist obedience. Real faith listens, submits, and keeps bearing fruit when the sun gets hot and the ground gets hard.
Tomorrow, Jesus will keep unfolding what the kingdom really looks like, and it will challenge every shallow expectation people bring to Him. Today, the issue is settled here. God’s Word will either be taken, tested, choked, or multiplied in you.
Takeaway: The Word of God never fails. When it produces no fruit, it has revealed the true condition of the heart.
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‘When you hear what I say,
you will not understand.
When you see what I do,
you will not comprehend.
For the hearts of these people are hardened,
and their ears cannot hear,
and they have closed their eyes—
so their eyes cannot see,
and their ears cannot hear,
and their hearts cannot understand,
and they cannot turn to me
and let me heal them.’
Matthew 13:15
Why did Jesus rebuke the scribes and Pharisees so harshly in Matthew 23:13–36?
Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees for making strenuous efforts to win converts and then leading those converts to be “twice as much” children of hell as the scribes and Pharisees were (Matthew 13:15). In other words, they were more intent on spreading their religion than on maintaining the truth.
Overview: Matthew 1-13 – Click Here
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