CREDIT: Creazilla
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
If most of us were asked, “What do I need to do to make a garden grow?” we could give a good answer – something like, “Well, you need some good soil, a little fertilizer, and regular watering.” I admit, the details might escape many of us, but that’s the basic start. You need to make sure the environment is adequate for the garden to grow. Without the basics, the garden might have a promising start, but soon, it’ll simply die away.
Jesus uses the image of varied types of environments to make a point on how God’s word grows from the first seed planted in a person’s heart into a rich life of faith in His Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-9) and His explanation (Matthew 13:18-23). A Sower scatters his seed all over the place. He doesn’t seem to worry about the kind of ground he’s scattering his seed on though. And most of it does sprout up. But most of what sprouts fails to mature into the desired fruit.
Like the ground where the seeds fall, our hearts, upon which God’s word falls, isn’t always ready to receive it. Too often, we desire to hear it, but our motives and intentions aren’t in the proper place. If we treat God’s word like a set of “magic beans” that’ll automatically change everything in our lives without our willingness to truly hear and understand it, His word will get snatched up, wither away in tough times, or get choked out by the worries of the world.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Like poor soil conditions can be improved by adding rich soil, fertilizer, and water; our hearts can be improved by the Holy Spirit if we subject our hearts to constant exposure to God in worship, regular devotions, and bible studies with other Christians. God plants in and transforms our less than fertile hearts, through His word, into lives of fertile faith producing much fruit today while we mature into eternal life in God’s heavenly kingdom.
In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Jim