(Inspired by A. W. Tozers article, Miracles Follow The Plow)

C. H. Fisher

Satisfaction and contentment are wonderful qualities to have when it comes to our material, physical world. However, one's spiritual life is not likely to resemble either of these two states if one has adopted an honest, biblical standard for bearing fruit. Such a person will be constantly challenged to produce more fruit. (John 15:2) This involves that dreaded process called change.

Yet when a person becomes content with a spiritually unchanging environment, they will resist the thought of change. Change causes them to have many unsettled feelings that too closely resemble discontentment.

There are times when we need to change. We need to change when the church services begin to ritualize, prayer becomes weak and infrequent, worship becomes formal and cold, vision is blurred or non-existing, and when we are not concerned about such conditions. Such is the state of spiritual satisfaction and contentment. It brings death to both purpose and vision that in turn allows spiritual death a point to attack spiritual life. It destroys the desire of those who are believing God for greater things of themselves.

"Why do we have to grow? Why can't we remain as we are without changes?" asks the contented ones.

The answer is because God never intended the church to be an exclusive organization. If we do not want to grow, we are making the statement that we believe fruit bearing is unnecessary and deny lost souls access to His grace. That would be denying the word of God and the Holy Spirit that implements His word.

It is the purpose of every Christian to bring souls to Jesus by witnessing and praying for them. We are to produce as a fruit tree produces, bearing seed, blossoming in agape love, then bringing forth fruit. This means more than witnessing and praying. It means to adopt and adapt to the vision of growth in all areas of our life. We cannot simply take a "wait and see" attitude. Praying and meditating on the vision of producing is a vital part of acquiring the vision. This helps us reach the unity that is necessary to avoid the spiritual collapse of drive and purpose. A vision produces drive and purpose.

Drive and purpose supplies the energy for outreaches. Without outreaches we only have in-reaching which is unstable and selfish. God will not bless an in-reaching church who gets mired in contentment.

I stay discontented with the spiritual state of things. I abhor the kind of death that settles in from unspiritual attitudes. It suffocates my desire which is to see the lost masses evangelized with the gospel. A struggle develops inside me when I preach to people who are satisfied. There is no goal to preaching and teaching if people are resisting growth and change.

Falling into the trap of being contented is common when the work catches up with our vision. In other words, if we are motivated to do a little, and a little comes along, we have pretty much reached our goal. What can anyone do to stir us at that point? We must be motivated to a higher goal. Keeping a God-centered goal is a mark we have to press for constantly. It keeps us from reaching and remaining in a false state of "attaining" that results from too small a goal. (Philippians 4:12-14)

If a person stays content long enough, they could not be jump-started if they were hooked to a Holy Ghost booster station. All they would do is deflect or redirect the current to someone or someplace else.

A. W. Tozer described the contented and fruitless state of an unplowed field in his article, "Miracles Follow the Plow." He likens it to Christians who fear the plow of God. I believe he has touched on the reason people grow content. They fear change and defy the plow of God. They only want God to plow in certain areas and in certain ways, if at all.

I believe revival comes with the plow. We go through or grow through periodic times of sifting that can be described as the plowing of our hearts. In my opinion, the plow of God is His probing, holy, search of our hearts that initiates this sifting process. The plow makes our hearts suitable for planting God's word. (Matthew 13:18-23)

Yet change comes with the plow. Familiar things are broken up and changed. Individuality, separate goals and visions are blended into one unified mission as the plow passes through.

Letting go of the old familiar places and things is difficult for people because of the security they have in them. Our security should be in God alone. Yet when the plow cuts coldly through our lives, we protest with cries of inconvenience in our insecurity. Our protests are never valid since we have given our lives to Him to do with as He pleases.

Serving God perfectly has never been and will never be convenient in this life. He constantly corrects our errors, imbalances, complacency and apathy to cause us to be fruitful. In this we see that the plow is a very provocative instrument of revival.

There are several reactions common to the coming of the plow.

1. Withdrawal. Withdrawal is manifested as infrequent service attendance, changing churches, unfaithfulness in prayer, ministry, bible study, witnessing and etceteras.

2. Denial. This appears as apathy or complacency. People in denial will act as if everyone deserves conviction but themselves.

3. Complaining. Whining and complaining are the steering wheels of manipulation. People use these methods to steer inconveniences out of their lives.

4. Defiance. This is outright rebellion to the plow. It is usually manifested as anger toward God's word and sometimes toward those who bring it.

5. Avoidance. This is the attempt to hide or slide into an obscure area unnoticed by the plow. "What can I do? I'm not a great person or anything." Thus protests the ones who like King Saul tried to avoid responsibility. (1 Samuel 10:22)

The plow must be accepted or the harvest will not come. It comes differently to each individual. To one it comes as trouble on their job. To another it appears as stress or other pressure. It can come as a wave of insecurity, or as dryness and coldness that drives us to our knees in alarm. It may be revealed as financial trouble, physical problems, or emotional distress. Yet when it comes it tears up everything familiar and secure and leaves in its wake organized chaos.

We are stuck without the plow. We become limited, fruitless and barren. A. W. Tozer went on to say about those who resist the plow, "They are what they will be." What a dreadful indictment of our resistance to God's right to plow our hearts. To thus limit our potential and submit to the unchanging field of contentment is a terrible forecast for the future.

To invite the plow is a fantastic adventure. Where the plow runs there the seed is planted, and the harvest results. The freshness of growing things cannot be duplicated by other means. This freshness fills the church with the much needed invasion of new life. The things we have become callused to, or take for granted, are new and exciting for new converts. They resurrect our dead, dying, or misplaced emotions for the things of God. It is the joy of harvest that every church needs else it goes the way of apostasy.

Harvest time was an extreme time of joy for Israel. The festivities and other activities during that occasion centered on the joy of realizing God's faithfulness. The great display of His faithfulness stimulated their faith in Him. Maybe we do not realize this important point; yet when we do not see a harvest we have trouble believing deep down inside for God to answer our prayers for our lost loved ones.

There are so many churches today who have gradually become exclusive. Even though they say they want to win the lost, their words are tiny puffs of smoke in the wind of selfish actions. The plow is considered by them to be a work of the devil, a trial to be avoided. Just when God brings them to the point their fallow hearts could be broken, they run to the world for encouragement and entertainment. It drives the work of the plow out of their lives. The weeds of contentment and satisfaction remain untouched.

Is it any wonder we hear and do not receive when so much in us hinders the seed? We do not seem to understand the fact that God's work in us cannot always be accomplished in a peaceful way. The sword of His word that pierces the soul and spirit is not coming to make peace with the things that hinder our relationship with God. God's anointed word is sent on a death mission. It will not quit until the very roots of the carnal mind has been destroyed and replaced by the mind of Christ.

We must realize that many times when we seek relief from our dryness and religious fruitlessness, we search in the wrong places and in the wrong way. In our comfort conscience and convenient oriented world even Christians look to the captivating Satan for relief and recreation. Too much time is wasted in front of a television. There are many times to take our attention away from the purpose for which Christ died. Paul had a pressing desire to know God's will and complete it in his life. The plow will not rest until it brings us to this same mind set.

(Phil 3:12 NKJV) "Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me."

15 Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.

We have all been guilty of avoiding the plow. Now is the time for us to accept this great but often rejected work of God.

How about you today? It is revival or ruin? Possibility and potential or security and the dearth of contentment? Will it be change and heavens bounty or the same old ways filled with contentment and convenience which never cries "enough?"  Will you allow the plow and change or resist it and remain the same? Such a question demands an answer from the soul, not from lips of superficiality.