Good Soil

5/1/18               Eddie   (video)                about 30

In the midst of the gathering storm of excitement toward His good news and healing ministry, Jesus told a parable that put this shallow enthusiasm in perspective.  The words he preached were like seeds sown on various types of soil, and most would not survive to yield a harvest.

But the seeds did grow in one type of soil, which Jesus described in Luke 8 as “those with a noble and good heart”.

Which leads to a question – how can anyone have a “noble and good heart” if elsewhere in scripture we read that “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.  All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” (Romans 3)

If God’s word is accepted only by “good” people, then it can never be received because in Romans we read that good people don’t exist!  Jesus didn’t die for the “good” people who received his message, he died for sinners, so I believe there is a reason He compared the heart of those who gladly receive his message with “good soil”.

What makes soil “good” is that it has been well prepared by the farmer in advance of receiving the seed.  In the same way, our hearts can and should be prepared to receive the seed of God’s word.

I was grateful, in a recent conversation with a jogger at the park named Eddie, that his heart had been prepared to receive the word I had to share with him.  He wasn’t a believer and has drifted away from his church upbringing, but his past exposure to God’s word had given him a soft heart and a tender conscience toward the things of God.  He was quick to acknowledge his sin in comparison with the standard of God’s law, even if he had a certain measure of pride in his own goodness in comparison with other people.

Eddie was also at a point in life where he has learned some hard lessons that finally brought him to a point of repentance toward his old way of life. 

To further “till the soil” of his heart, I used some of the Ten Commandments to show him how he looks in the mirror of God’s word rather than the mirror of comparison to others that he had been looking in.

There is a reason Jesus spoke in parables, hiding his spiritual message from many people as He did.  The soil of some people’s hearts still needs to be prepared to receive the truth.

Will what was sown at the park in Eddie’s heart be the seed that “came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”?  Let’s be in prayer that it does!

See our conversation HERE