Mark 4:26

Mark 4:26 says, And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground.  Jesus compared the kingdom of God to something simple to understand again.  Like a man planting seed, we are to plant the seed of the Gospel.  Verse twenty-seven adds, And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.  After a man plants seed, he then goes about his everyday life.  He doesn't sit watching the seed to see what will happen.  Once we plant the seed of the gospel in a person's life, we should go on living our everyday life.  While the man who planted the seed was sleeping, the seed was bursting out in new life.  We cannot make the gospel bear fruit, but God does that, just as He causes the seed to bring forth new life.  Verse twenty-eight continues, For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. The growth from the seed isn't immediate but comes in stages.  First there is the blade, then the developing ear, then the full-grown ear.  We cannot expect new Christians to be fully developed when they accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord.  They are fully saved, but they will need to be nurtured in their faith, some more than others, as we all do.  Verse twenty-nine concludes, But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come. When the fruit is fully developed, it is harvested.  I believe the gospel bears fruit when a person accepts Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord, but the true harvest will not come until a person dies or until Jesus Christ returns.  Until then, we should all continue to develop in our Christian life.  We as Christians have the responsibility to spread the gospel, but we cannot force it to bear fruit.  Of course, the first step is to accept the seed of the gospel when it is planted.