Leaven From Heaven

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

LEAVEN FROM HEAVEN

Luke 13:20-21

20 Again he asked, "What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? 21 It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough." 

NIV

We know of yeast and its effects on the flour, but Jesus is just using that as a way of telling us He is like that yeast and the effects God has on our souls. At first, before the leaven, or yeast we are nothing but flour, inert, just sitting there in our own bag, without any movement. However, when the gospel is mixed into our lives by the Spirit, it begins, it becomes invasive and mixes in our until it completely makes us into a different nature. We grow as that dough in the bowl does because the yeast works throughout until it wholly converts the flour into a new nature. When the kingdom of God is within us we cannot help but grow into the nature God intended us to be when He first created Adam.  We can never go back to being just flour in a bag, ridding ourselves of the yeast of the gospel. There is also another application to this parable and that involves the whole earth. When Jesus came to earth in the form of man and taught the wholeness of the gospel, healed both the physical and the souls of men, then went to the cross, paying the price for our disobedience, the world could never be the same. The gospel is that yeast, Jesus is that leaven that spreads throughout the world, changing its very nature, perhaps one soul at a time. Still, the world cannot go back to a time before Jesus, when man either lived for himself, pursuing his own evil desires ignoring any reference to God, or lived under the burden of the law God gave the Israelites, yet failing miserably to find true righteousness. The world has been changed forever, and in some sense, this and the last parable are prophetic showing us that Jesus will prevail in changing us into his nature. Our soul will expand to overflowing that bowl and spilling out all over the counter. The yeast of the gospel has changed everything, the world has changed because of the leaven from heaven.