Creflo Dollar - The Gateway to Life
I'm going to talk to you this morning about the heart, the gateway to life. The heart, the gateway to life. Now, we've been talking about how important it is to receive God's Word as seed, but when you have seed, it is as equally or probably more important that you put it in the right kind of ground. You can take seed and put it in the wrong kind of ground, and it will not produce a harvest.
1 Peter chapter 1, verse 23, and let's read verse 23 out loud together. Ready, read: "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever." So here, the results of the born-again harvest is a result of the Word of God, which the Bible calls what? Incorruptible seed.
Well, what is "incorruptible seed"? It is seed that will always produce. It is seed that will never fail. So in this system of farmin', where the Word of God is the seed, then the ground is the heart of a man, and so when the Word of God, which is incorruptible seed, seed that will never fail, seed that'll always produce, when the Word of God is put in the ground or the heart of a man, it will produce a harvest.
Now, here it identifies that the Word of God, the day you got saved, the Word of God came in. It got in your heart, and it gave birth to the harvest of born again. That came from incorruptible seed. So without a doubt, that's how that happened. If you didn't have the Word of God as seed goin' into a man's heart, then "born again" would not be the harvest. If you understand that, say, "Amen."
Now go to Acts chapter 20 and verse 32. Acts, the Book of Acts chapter 20 and verse 32. Now, I believe that every promise, every finished work of God has been put inside of a seed, called his Word, and it has been reserved for us, not from us. He didn't hide his promises in the Word from us. He hid his promises in the Word for us.
You know, in the natural, if you were to go to the seed store and you would locate seed, the pack of seeds would always have a word on it so that you can identify the kind of seed. If it was just seed lying around in a barrel, you wouldn't know what you're getting, so you wouldn't know what you would be harvesting. But they take the seed, put the name of the seed so you can go in and select specifically and precisely what you're wanting to grow. Well, now, the Word of God is the same thing.
The Word of God is seed, and the Word of God, you can read God's Word, and you can pick out the type of seed you wanna grow. You can find healing seed in the Bible. You can find deliverance seed in the Bible. You can find prosperity seed in the Bible. You can find peace seed in the Bible. It's the Word of God, and that Word, when you take that Word, that's like takin' seed out of the feed store.
So you take the Word of God, you plant that Word in your heart, and it will produce because the seed is incorruptible. It will never fail. Now, to me, that just sounds pretty simple that like a farmer, his desire is to harvest corn and he has a bag of corn in the barn, then if he never takes the corn out of the barn, out of the bag, and put it in the soil, will he ever harvest corn? No.
In order for him to harvest corn, he's got to take the bag of seed out the barn. He's got to take the seed out the bag. He's got to put it in the soil that will grow it, and then he'll have harvest for corn.
Our lives are structured in that same manner, that you don't have to walk around here feeling stuck where you are. If you wanna see somethin' in your life, you can grow it. Lord, have mercy. Turn to your neighbor and say, "It ain't over."
So if you don't like where you are, I'm showing you, you can grow it. You can grow it. You can make your way prosperous, and you can have good success, but you have to respect the system that God has chosen that will produce the life that you want, and so it's about going to the Bible, getting a Scripture which is your Word seed that covers your situation, knowing with confidence that it's impossible for this Word not to produce if I'm planting it in good soil, and now here's the situation, making sure that my heart is good soil to grow this seed.
The problem ain't gon' never be with the healing Scripture. It's never gon' be with the deliverance Scripture. It's never gon' be with the prosperity Scripture. The problem, if there is one, will always be with the condition of your heart. So the condition of a man's heart is going to determine if he will ever have a successful heart.
Now, what I am gettin' ready to show you, ladies and gentlemen, you have complete freedom of choice. You can either choose this and watch your life change or not choose it and stay the same. Are you listening to me? Now, what I'd like to do, let me read this real quick. He says, "And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up. This word of grace is able to build you up, and this word of grace is able to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified."
So notice he said the Word is able to build you up, and he said the Word is able to give you the inheritance. The thing that God promised and the thing that God said is an inheritance for you, he says you get it by getting the Word. You find the Word that work through the Word of God, that Word contains what's necessary to build you up, and that Word contains the promise that you have been told to inherit. It's all in the Word.
So now think about a life aside from the Word will now make you subject to producing another harvest because, if your life is not attached to the Word but it is attached to other words, then you've taken the authority you have to create the life you want, and you've turned it over. It's the same system.
We live in a word society, word-based society, and whatever word, words are seeds, whether they're positive or negative. So what kind of seed you allow to get into the ground of your heart is gonna determine what kind of life you gon' have. If you understand that, say, "Amen."