Your Heart

Happy Valentine's Day Beloved of God's!

Today's blog is about the condition of your heart taken from Matthew 13, the parable of the sower.

Have you ever wondered why you can sit in church week after week and the hear the truth of God's Word and yet have it make no difference in your every day life? I believe one of the reasons this happens has to do with the condition of our hearts. In the parable of the sower the ground represents the condition of our hearts. As a Christian, your heart is not automatically soil 4. As a matter of fact your heart probably has areas containing all 4 soils (that is why you can always be growing in one area but never make progress in another area).

Soil 1: The road

http://flickr.com/photos/himalayan-trails/2868073936/

What is a road? A road is usually laid by someone else. It is something hard that cannot be penetrated. In the olden days roads were made by the continual walking over and over in the same places.

Maybe there are areas in your own heart that resemble a road. In your life's story there are areas where people have continually walked upon and stomped part of your spirit down. When God's word comes, it does not penetrate that area of your heart. The Word just sits there and the Enemy quickly comes and snatches it up.

Soil 2: Rocky ground

If you've been a Christian for a while you might have areas in your heart that resemble rocky ground. You saw the rocks from soil 1 in your life and instead of removing them you covered them over with dirt. The dirt gave the illusion to yourself and others that everything was okay but the reality was that you were just hiding the rocks and hard places discussed above. When you are in church and hear God's truth you get really excited and come home pumped to be different but then the next day or only 2 hours later you lose it and are back to your old ways.

Soil 3: Weedy Ground

This refers back to the blog posting on 2/5/09 "Obtaining Freedom Part 2: Relinquishing Control." It gets back to our inability to trust the heart of God. When we hear the truth of God's Word we line it up against everything we see around us and we allow our circumstances to choke out the truth of God.

Soil 4: Ready to Roll Ground

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This soil is our goal. Soil that has the ability to receive God's Word and not only receive it but be able to reproduce from it. What does reproduction get? It not only benefits ourselves but if there is 30x, 60x or even 100x more we are able to share it with others! This is the power of God's Word in our lives and in the world.

So now what? It goes back to the first question I asked ~ are there areas in your life that never seems to change? What is that area(s)? My suggestion to you is to take that area of your heart before the throne of God.

• Decide which soil that area of your heart is: soil 1, 2 or 3.




• Ask Jesus to take that hard place in your heart and change it. Matthew 13:14-16 "'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them." If we turn towards Him, His promise is to heal us.




• Cultivate your soil. Especially, if your heart is soil 3 than you will have to be proactive to choose to trust God with your heart when the worries begin to resurface. Continue to read the Word and pray to keep your soft heart.




• Be patient. When you plant something you know that you won't see the final product on the first day the seed is planted. The same is true in our Christian walk we will not always see the immediate result of the truth of God's Word. Your part though is to submit your heart to Jesus and to make sure your soil is in the right condition. If it is in the right condition you will see the results in time and you will be able to share the fruit from it with others!