A Tale of Four Grounds (Part 1)
“Listen! A farmer went out to plant his seed.”
Mark 4:3
(easy-to-read).
Greetings Brothers and
Sisters, I trust you’ve been having a great day.
Welcome to the new
afternoon devotion titled THE WORD FOR TODAY. My prayer is that you find them a
blessing.
Today, I’d like to
share with you from a very familiar story that Jesus used to teach his
disciples: The Parable of the Sower.
“And he spoke many
things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
And when he sowed, some
seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
.
.
.
But others fell into
good ground, and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some
thirtyfold.
Who has ears to hear,
let him hear.”
- Matthew 13:3-9
The Parable of the
Sower is so rich a story that
it is sometimes called, “The Mother of
All Parables” (Mark 4:13). The aspect about this parable that I’d
be dwelling on is God’s vision, inspiration or idea given to us as represented
by the seed of the sower.
I have always believed
that there are no ‘special people’, or ‘super Christians’; that is, I don’t
believe that there are uniquely favoured persons whom God has set aside to be
the main events of history would just be ordinary. I believe that God gives
faith, revelation and ideas to all who are His children. James 1:5 says God “gives
to all men liberally”, the Easy-to-read version says He is generous and “ENJOYS
GIVING TO ALL PEOPLE”.
So why are some
shinning over others? Indeed why WILL some shine over others? The distinction is
in the way we His children act on what we have received. In other words, NOT
ALL HEARTS ARE THE SAME.
A Tale of Four Grounds
The Bible says ‘The SEED
IS THE WORD OF GOD,’ (Lk
8:11) and the farmer is God Himself, giving His Word to all who care to
receive. The grounds here for this lesson represent our hearts, attitudes and
mentalities to the Word of God as it arrives.
So we’ll
be taking a look at the FOUR different ‘GROUNDS’, which refers to
GROUND 1 – NOTHING
HAPPENS AT THE WAYSIDE
“Hear you therefore the
parable of the sower.
When any one hears the
word of the kingdom, and understands it not, then comes the wicked one, and
catches away that which was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by
the way side”.
– Matthew 13:18-19
The majority of
recipients of God-given ideas are in this category; they never even get to know
something hot is in their hands before the sly, ever-observant enemy picks it
up. They receive the word but dispel it as some fanciful thought, an impossible
feat, or something like that.
Because they lack
understanding, they fail to distinguish between a fabulous idea and a
God-inspired one. Scripture says the devil comes and “takes the word OUT of
their hearts”.
THINK ABOUT IT
Did God say anything to you this morning when you prayed,
or did you just pray and say “Amen”?
How about your ‘Bible Reading’? Was the passage from
Leviticus too boring, or the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ too familiar. We usually day
that “One word from God can change a man’s destiny”. But no one ever told us
that that word could be in the passage we read hurriedly while preparing to go
to work, or said in-passing by our pastor as he was rounding off his sermon.
The people in this Ground 1 category aren’t
unbelieving sceptics. No, they are believers who hear the word but lost it
because, (Jesus said) “They understand it not”.
It’s easy for the devil to steal the word if you the
recipient do not know it’s THE word in the first place.
So next time you open your Bible, let the words of
Deacon Philip come to you to ask you this basic question: “Understandest thou
what thou readest?”
AMEN.
We’ll continue tomorrow.
More Blessings Await you today, you’ll not miss them
in Jesus Name.
Greg Elkan
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