Elkan's Word For Today

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:

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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