The Ground, The Heart

For a number of days we have talked about the seed that is in our seed packet, the Bible. Let’s talk about the ground that those seeds go into. That ground is our hearts.

It is spring, the time of the year when we start planning what we are going to plant in our garden. I have already gotten some flower seeds that I will be planting this year. Spring is a time of expectation, anticipation of warm days ahead and the beautiful results of our planting.

I have a flower bed that I have been adding nutrients to for a long time, but every year, I take a spading fork and turn up that soil and add top soil, peat moss and cow manure to it. And every year I am rewarded with beautiful flowers. One year all I did was to plant the flowers and they didn’t produce such a beautiful garden. We can take lessons from our natural gardening and apply them to our spirits. Our hearts must be prepared for the seeds or they won’t produce what they are intended to produce.

In my life in the ministry I have seen so many people take hold in the beginning of the teaching of the word and with great joy receive it. But when the persecution came for the sake of the Word, they fell away, grew weary and went back to their old ways. There was a whole new life waiting for them if they just would not have quit or grown discouraged and allowed disappointment to consume them. We have an enemy who wants to sow weeds in our hearts, who tells us we don’t have to prepare ourselves to receive the Word. It is his job to convince us it won’t work for us.

Oh, there is such a wonderful, wide-open, unlimited place God wants each of us to walk in.

Let’s look at the parable of the sower, a very familiar passage of scripture for most of us. It is a parable about the heart. Jesus told us that if we don’t understand this parable, how can we understand others.

This parable is in Matthew 13:18-23, Mark 4:14-20 and Luke 8:11-15. We will use the passage in Mark and bring in the other two gospels as well.

Mark 4:14-20
The sower sows the word.
And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, satan comes immediately, and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts.
In Matthew we are told that these are people who hear the word and don’t grasp it, comprehend it, understand it

And these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground, who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness; and have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution arises for the word’s sake, immediately they are offended.
In Matthew we are told that the word is temporary in these people. When affliction, trouble, or persecution comes on account of the Word, they stumble, are repelled, distrust the Lord and fall away from the Word.
In Luke we are told that they believe for a while and when persecution comes, they withdraw and fall away.

And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, and the cares (and anxieties) of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke (suffocate) the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

And these are they which are sown on good ground; such as hear the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.