In Matthew 13, Jesus tells a parable about sowing seeds. The seeds fall on different soils. These soils represent the heart’s spiritual condition, and your heart’s state will determine if you can hear God speak. This blog will focus on the first condition, the hardened path.
Hard as a Rock
Growing up in central Texas, I learned the difficulty of digging through rocky soil. I spent time with my dad using post-hole diggers to clear out the loose dirt, but I predominantly used a crowbar to break through the large rocks. Thank God I don’t get paid to dig fence posts for a living. I am much more suited for air-conditioned office work. In the first example of the soils, Jesus explains that some seeds fell on the hardened path. Because the way was so hard, the seeds could not find any dirt to take root. So it was an easy meal for a bird.
Jesus explains to his disciples that the soil is your heart, and the seed is His Word. Jesus used a well-understood concept to describe a spiritual truth as he often did. Like the seed on the path, His Word cannot take root when your heart is hard. And if the Word cannot take root, then there will be no growth. No growth means that there will be no production of good fruit.
No Jesus, No Peace
If you do not have a relationship with Jesus, His Word cannot find root in your heart. When people accept Jesus as Lord and Savior by inviting Him into their hearts, the Bible says they get a new heart. They receive a heart of flesh to replace the heart of stone. People who don’t know Jesus can benefit from His wisdom but can’t experience the new creation that a relationship brings. Most religions claim Jesus as a good teacher. Jesus was much more than that and cannot be reduced to just a teacher. You can’t get a new heart without surrendering your life to the Savior.
Calloused
I am a guitar player, and developing callouses on my fingers is necessary to play guitar. The callouses remove the pain of pressing down the string to the fret. But believers can develop spiritual callouses on our hearts. The callouses will dull the pain of rejection, disappointment, and even major trauma. If you have been around the church for any time, you have likely developed wounds from your faith community. Other callouses are a result of the self-inflicted wounds of sin. The callouses can numb the emotional and spiritual pain but harden your heart. And a hard heart has trouble hearing God.
Hearing God Speak
The good news is that God has a cure for hardened hearts. We are only a few weeks from celebrating Easter, but just like the stone in front of Jesus’ tomb, God can remove that which keeps your heart from Him. You may not understand or believe it to be humanly true, but that is the best part of the resurrection. In Jesus’ resurrection, God accomplished something that no one thought possible. No one imagined that the Messiah would die on the cross and rise from the dead three days later. It was beyond the scope of human imagination, and yet God did it.
The good news is that the God of the resurrection wants to speak to you. He wants your heart to be softened so the seed can find a place to put roots and produce good fruit. We serve a God of the impossible, and He sent His son so that your heart could be made new. If you call on God and seek to draw near, God will draw near to you. Callouses take a while to develop; sometimes, they take time to be made new. Seek Him with all you have; He is waiting for you.
Follow along with my podcast as I talk more in-depth about the parable of the sower in April. Ep. 15: Bran Flakes | The Unbroken Ground (podbean.com)
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