Soil—The Lost Heart & The Saved Heart
“For as the earth produces its sprouts,
And as a garden causes the things
sown in it to spring up,
So the Lord GOD will cause
righteousness and praise
To spring up before all the nations.”
(Isaiah 61: 11 NASB)
As I look out at my dying garden, the one outside my kitchen window, I see lonely okra stalks standing where once lush & vibrant growth existed. The sunflowers and tomatoes are slowly losing their plentiful bounty as the autumn weeds entangle the garden paths, replacing a clean garden with one filled with filth. It is this “dying” garden soil where I am drawn today.
God gives us each a fertile heart.
God allows someone to come along our life-path and plant His Word.
God sends a waterer, a cultivator, and then a groomer into our lives.
Then God sends someone who is given the opportunity to be present for the harvest.
We accept the love of God & we believe in God’s Son Jesus.
We receive the truth of Jesus’ death, burial, & resurrection.
What God allows to be planted into our heart, springs up & grows.
The Lord GOD causes His righteousness to fill our heart.
We praise God for His most beautiful gift of Salvation.
Then God commissions us—to go, to tell, & to share His Good News with the nations surrounding us.
The prophet Isaiah wrote this Truth so we could understand, see, and be encouraged.
The apostle Mark wrote this Truth as well when God gave Mark the words of Jesus, the words in red that came from our Savior’s own mouth.
“And He said to them, [Jesus did] . . . .
“The sower sows the word. . . .
“And others are the ones sown with seed among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word,
but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for others things enter and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.”
(Mark 4: 13-14 & 18-19 NASB)
- We know that the seed is the Word of God.
- We know that the sowers of the seed are the believers, the Christians, the redeemed.
- We know the thorns are the cares of the world.
- We know the thorns are the things that choke out the Truth of God.
- We know so much about the lost and how they hear, how their heart does not receive the Word planted deep within them, how the Word of God (the seed) falls upon different heart soils.
BUT do we know about the unfruitful sower?
BUT do we know about the sower who does not plant a luscious garden all because of both the sower’s & the seed’s “desires for others things enter and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful”?
If the lost person’s heart is infertile, then the seed of the gospel cannot produce fruit.
If the saved person’s heart is infertile, then the Word of God will not be obeyed.
Either way, either type of person (lost or saved) remains infertile & closed off to God.
I wonder—
- Do we hear God’s Word only for the salvation of our soul?
- Do we hear & readily obey God’s Word daily as we walk through life with our Lord?
- Do we carry our Bible to church, study it there while surrounded by other believers, only to tuck it under our arms and keep it closed off to our lives during the rest of the days of the week?
- Does God plant seeds into the hearts of His children, seeds of commission that He gives us to do, and seeds that we allow to become choked by the weeds of our life desires?
I wonder—
Are we so choked and worried by the cares of this world that we forget about the things that God taught us to do?
I wonder—
Are we, the redeemed, just going through the motions?
I wonder—
Are we, the saved, just too busy to do the work our Lord commissioned us to do?
I wonder—
We need the Master Gardener to come into our lives and prune us.
We need God’s Holy Spirit to pull out the weeds we have allowed to grow.
We need God to grab our bag of seed He gave to us & to pull away the weedy vines that seem to entangle us and our witness.
We need God so much!
We need Jesus’ image to overtake us.
We need God’s Holy Spirit to lead us away from the weeds and into fruitfulness.
We need Jesus to remind us how our heart is soil that can and will grow, will thrive, and will produce the “Fruit of the Spirit” God gives.
Today is a beautiful day to work in our heart-garden. Yes, today is the only day that really matters. May we bow our heads and ask God to pluck away the weeds.
Then, as we are made ready, may we strap on God’s seed bag and begin anew, scattering the Gospel message as we have been commissioned to do.