Good morning and welcome in everybody. Today, we are going to take a look at a passage of scripture, but before we do that, I wanted to tell you a little story.
Once again it is the time of year when people are preparing to plant their gardens. They will order a load of black dirt or buy some bags of fertilizer and begin tilling the ground. They want to make sure that their seeds will have the best advantage to grow. The type of soil that you plant in is very important to their success. Many years ago when we built our first greenhouse, we planted thousands of tomato seeds. As they grew, we needed to transplant them, but because there were so many, we had no place to put them all. Our garden was completely full already, so what we did was plant them all over our property, wherever we could find a patch of dirt. You might see a plant here, or a couple more over there, scattered throughout the area. They planted them in the woods, on the side of the hill, by our driveway, and around our chicken shed. Granted, some of them didn’t find the right conditions to grow into maturity, but some did. All they needed was to be planted in the right place, and in good ground.
This reminds me of a Christian Life.
The teachings of God’s Word are like a pack of seeds, and when they are planted into a good and obedient heart, they can grow into Spiritual maturity. While most gardens at home are fairly small, those who are planting God’s Word have a much larger field to work in. There is an entire world that needs to have the seed of Truth planted inside of their hearts. As a woman might sow tomatoes in her garden, men are called to rise up and sow the Word of God, planting Spiritual seed wherever they may go.
Luke 8:4-15 And when much people were gathered together, and were come to him out of every city, he spake by a parable: A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be?
And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.
Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.
When you plant seeds, not all of the seeds are going to grow because there will be certain impediments to their survival and maturity. Sometimes when you plant seeds in the garden, not all of them are going to make it directly into the ground because some of them will spill off onto the sides of the furrows. At that point the squirrels and the birds will take them away. The devil wants to steal the seed of God’s Word before it has the opportunity to become planted too deeply inside of your heart. He doesn’t want you to believe the truth and eventually become obedient to the teachings of our faith, and just like in the garden of Eden, he continues to try to seduce and to lead people away from the will of God, ripping the seed of scripture from your heart.
Another point is that a seed needs to develop strong roots in order to draw the nutrients that it needs from the soil. They must grow down deep, as the plant begins to mature and grow, otherwise it cannot go on unto fruitfulness. Likewise, some people will happily receive the teachings of God’s Word, but their roots do not grow deep enough to keep them securely in place. They only last for a certain period of time, but eventually are overcome by temptations of this world. Instead of resisting them and becoming transformed by the truth, they completely give in to them. They never go on unto spiritual maturity, they simply topple over, like a tree that becomes uprooted out in the swamp.
In a garden, many weeds can spring up, which can steal the water and food from your plants. When this happens, it can cause them to dry up and wither away. Weeds need to be removed from the garden so that the plants can survive. Some people will begin the Christian Life, but the weeds of this world will completely choke off God’s Word that has been planted in their heart. Instead of developing a love for the truth, their hearts become more focused on the things of this world, which leads them away from bearing Spiritual fruit.
But when a seed hits the right kind of soil, it can eventually produce lots of fruit. When people choose to follow the path of Christ, and walk in perfect submission to His purpose, they can produce the same. The scriptures are filled with examples of men who led fruitful lives because of their obedience to God, such as the Apostles of Christ, or the steadfast heart of the Apostle Paul. Imagine how much fruit that they will be able to have in eternity because of their faithfulness to the will of God.
So the next time you pick ripe tomatoes from your garden, and you remove all the seeds from them, take a good look at how many there are. It’s absolutely amazing how many seeds that one fruit can produce. In order to have that kind of fruitfulness you must always remember that it began with one seed that was planted in the right kind of soil, a good and obedient heart. In those conditions, it is unlimited the size of the harvest that you can reap. God is a rewarder and the possibilities are endless for those who serve Him and do His will. What kind of soil is in your heart? Is it fertile ground that is ready for…..
….. Spring Planting
Let’s think about these things for right now. We can be found on your web browser by searching, tlkjbc where you can find our diaries distributed through various platforms. We are not associated, nor affiliated with any other religious groups. You can get our entire podcast feeds directly, along with transcripts at tlkjbc.com or I suppose that you could find us somewhere up here, in the Great Northern Minnesota woods. Peace to you, and Lord willing, we will talk with you some more tomorrow. Till then, bye bye everybody. ❤️
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