You Are Plain As Dirt

Jesus often used parables to communicate spiritual truth in a way that could be commonly understood. In the parable of the sower (Mark 4:1-20), Jesus taught that the Word of God is like a seed, and our heart is like soil. 

Jesus taught his disciples that if they couldn’t understand that one parable, they wouldn’t be able to understand any other parables.  There’s something in that single parable that shows us how valuable and powerful the Word of God really is when it is sown into our hearts.  Yet, sad to say, many Christians just don’t make time to study the Bible.

What if I told you that everything you needed to be successful – to be whole, physically, financially and in every other area of your life – is already deposited in your born-again spirit? And what if I told you the only thing you needed to activate it was to sow the seed of God’s Word?  Now, how do you think your life would change if you committed yourself to studying the Bible on a regular basis? 

The Word of God is the most essential thing you need in your life, both spiritually and physically.  It has the power to transform the world!

The Word of God is an incorruptible seed that brings forth fruit when planted in your heart.

God’s Word can activate what you already have in your born-again spirit!

For whatever reason, the church has been making converts, but not disciples.  By Jesus’ own definition, a disciple is a person who continues in his Word until they are free. (John 8:31-32) The church has not emphasized God’s Word nearly enough, and it’s caused millions of people who claim to be Christians to just not let the Bible get in the way of what they believe.

As Christians, it’s important for us to sow the seed of God’s Word into our hearts so we can bear fruit (Gal. 5-22-23) and be ready to give an answer to every man that asks about the hope that is in us.  (1 Pet. 3:15) There is a world dying for lack of answers to the issues they face, and I believe the Word of God has them.

Seed and Soil – God’s Word and Your Heart
The Lord taught three parables in the fourth chapter of Mark, which illustrate the Word is to the Kingdom of God what a natural seed is to a physical harvest.

1 Peter 1:23 says, “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which lives and abides forever.”

According to this verse, the Word of God is a seed, an incorruptible seed, which in the Greek refers to the seed a man sows into a woman to conceive a child.  The bottom line is conception cannot take place without first planting the seed. 

However, I talk to people all the time who pray and believe for God to do something in their lives but remain frustrated with the results. It’s because they are missing the seeds of conception; they just don’t know God’s Word. 

To conceive and give birth from your spirit, you must first plant God’s Word like a seed in your heart.

God’s kingdom operates on laws, like the laws that govern the fruit-bearing process of a seed.  And this is precisely the reason most people don’t see God’s best come to pass in their lives.  They think that since God loves them, he will just grant their request regardless of whether they put the seed of Gods Word to work or not.

But God has already done his part.  He has given us the Word!  The power is in His promises – His Word.  As we plant those promises in our hearts, the truth of His Word germinates, and prosperity comes.

Likewise, the proper way to get healed is to take God’s promises of healing and plant them in our hearts until they release their life-giving power into our physical bodies.

It is of utmost importance that you know God’s Word and that you plant that seed in your heart. It could mean the difference between prosperity and poverty, health and sickness or even life and death. But the seed can do nothing without soil.

According to Genesis 1:11-12 and Mark 4:28, seeds don’t produce a harvest. The earth produces the harvest. The seed activates what is already in the soil. 

If you could understand and apply this principle of God’s Kingdom to your personal life, I believe it would change everything.

Parable of the Sower Introduction
The first parable Jesus taught in the 4th chapter of Mark, the Parable of the Sower, is the key to unlocking all the Word of God.  That is really significant because He’s saying that if you don’t understand this teaching, then you won’t be able to understand any of his teachings.  So this is like a key that unlocks everything else.

If we don’t understand these truths, Jesus said, we won’t understand any of His other parables.

In this parable, Jesus described four types of soil into which seed could be sown, but He really wasn’t teaching about agriculture.  When Jesus later explained the parable to his disciples, He revealed that the seed was the Word of God, and that the soil was people’s hearts.

The Word of God contains total power. (Ps 138:2 & Heb 1:3), but it has to be planted in our hearts and allowed to germinate before it releases that power.

The Word is the same in every situation.  It is good seed – incorruptible seed (1 Peter 1:23) – but there are different results in each case because of the condition of people’s hearts.

The Word doesn’t work for everyone because not everyone will allow the Word to work.  What would happen if you planted a seed in your garden and then dug it up each morning to see if anything was happening.  It would die and never produce fruit.  You have to have faith that the seed is doing what God created it to do.

Some people put Gods Word in their hearts for a day or two, but if they don’t see fruit almost immediately, they dig up the seed through their words and actions and wonder why it didn’t work.  You have to leave it in the ground.  We can take the supernatural words of God – the seed of miracles we need – and meditate on them until we can see the result in our hearts.  Those who will place His words in their hearts and allow those seeds to take root and sprout will, in time, see the manifestation of what they believe and speak.

The variable in this parable is the condition of these hearts.

God’s Word is always the same.  It has the same potential in every heart.

A heart represented by the wayside ground is one that has no understanding of God’s Word.  (Matt 13:19) The Word never gets inside of the heart, but lays on the surface, where it’s easily stolen away by the devil.  Jesus said that Satan has the ability to steal this Word from those who understand it not. Therefore, understanding is the first step in getting God’s Word down on the inside of us.

You should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.  Ephesians 4:17b – 18

Attend to the Word
We only have so much attention to give. If we want fruitfulness, we need to focus on the Word and not on other things that can preoccupy us.  Just as the earth only has so many nutrients, and weeds can take away nourishment that could be going to the desired plant, so all the things of this world will steal energy from us that could be going into the Word of God.

Notice that these aren’t necessarily bad things. We have to attend to the affairs of this life to a degree. But there has to be a proper balance between job, family, leisure and the Word.  We don’t strike this balance once and are through with. It. This is something that constantly varies based on our seasons of life,

The only way to maintain the proper balance is to maintain a deep and meaningful relationship with the Lord.  He will reveal to us anytime we begin to be too focused on something other than Him.

The strength of a laser lies in its focus. If the focus is diffused, the laser ceases to be powerful. Likewise, the power of the Christian is amplified by a single focus (Phil 3:13) The way to destroy a man’s vision is to give him two, which is really the meaning of the word “division.”

Sowing Into Good Soil
“But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” Mark 4:8

The thing that made this ground good, in contrast with the other three types of ground, is not that it had more rocks, thorns or other things, but rather that it had less. It had less weeds and fewer rocks to drain the nutrients.

Many times we feel that we just don’t have what it takes to become fruitful, but the truth is that any of us can see God’s Word produce in our lives if we root out all the contrary things. 

Good ground doesn’t just happen. It has to be cultivated. This is the reason only one out of four kinds of soil in Jesus parable brought forth fruit.

It takes a lot of effort and diligence to be a fruitful Christian. It also takes a lot of patience. The Christian life is not like a 100-yard dash, but rather a 26-mile marathon.  It takes time to become a fruitful Christian. It’s quicker and easier to raise weeds than it is to raise tomatoes or corn. 

For your heart to be good ground, it takes eliminating preoccupation with the things of the world and placing more focus on the Lord.

In this whole parable, the Word was the catalyst that produced fruit. It was what was in the ground that allowed it to grow.  If we will simply put God’s Word in our hearts, protect it and give it priority in our lives, the soil will bring forth fruit of itself.

Satan has deceived many of us into thinking that we don’t have the talents or abilities to be fruitful Christians, but we are not the ones who bring forth fruit.  It’s God’s Word planted in our hearts. When we protect the Word sown in our hearts, it will do the rest.

Even among those who were fruitful, there were varying degrees of fruitfulness. But this wasn’t dictated by the person who sowed the Word, it’s all about the condition of the soil it’s sown in.

God’s Word has the same potential in every situation. It’s not the Word that is the variable, but rather the condition of the heart that is receiving it.

Jesus compared the kingdom of God to a seed and our hearts to soil. Now, the significance of that is if He had compared the kingdom of God to some man-made system like school, well then, it can be cheated.

You can cheat on a test. People can load things in their short-term memory and pass a test, and yet never really learn the material.

The reason Jesus used the picture of a seed to describe the kingdom of God is because it’s part of how God designed things. There is seed, time, and harvest – there are steps and stages to growth.

The Greek word automatos, which was translated “of herself” in verse 28 is only used twice in Scripture; in this verse and Acts 12:10.  It means “self-moved (‘automatic’), i.e. spontaneous.” It’s where we get our English word automatic.  The ground just produces fruit automatically. Likewise, our hearts are made to automatically produce whatever seeds we sow in it.

Everything we will ever need is already in our hearts through the new birth.  We just need the incorruptible seed of God’s Word to bring them to birth. 

Our hearts are miraculous soil, just waiting for the seed to bring out all God has put in us.

In the natural world, everything revolves around seed, time and harvest.  It’s the same in the spiritual world. God’s Word is the seed that given time, produces a harvest.

Most people don’t like the root building process.  They want to experience the benefits that are visible in their lives, but they don’t want to spend time alone with God in His Word, letting it get rooted and established in them.

Don’t worry about the growth above ground, the blessings and benefits that are visible.
Instead, put your focus and emphasis on getting rooted in the Word of God.

Reaping a Harvest
Your heart is the ground, and when you get born again, God put in your heart everything that you will ever need.

If you need finances, it’s all in there.  If you’re born again, you have the fullness of the Godhead in you bodily, and that includes finances.  You just need to take the seed of God’s Word and put it in your spiritual womb – your heart – and that seed will activate and conceive miracles.

I found about 100 scriptures on prosperity, and I wrote them out longhand on a legal pad. I would just go through those scriptures, read them, pray over them and meditate on them.

I planted the seed, the promises from God’s Word for two years.  And to most people, there was no evidence of anything happening. But I just kept planting the seed in my heart, meditating on it and the earth – my heart –  just brought forth fruit of herself. (Mark 4:28) All of a sudden, those seeds that I’d been sowing in my heart – they sprouted.  Immediately, I got a revelation on finances!

I’m not bragging on me, but I am bragging on what the Lord has done. It’s all because I spent time sowing the seeds of God’s Word in my heart, putting down roots that would support the vision God had for my life, and seeing it conceived and birthed into a worldwide ministry!

Conclusion
The Word of God is like a seed, and when you plant a seed, it’s miraculous what happens. You can’t just ignore the seeds and leave them unattended.  They won’t sprout until you plant them in the ground. Our heart is the ground.

I’m not the brightest, smartest or most polished person.  But the one thing I’ve done is to take God’s Word and let it produce miraculous results for me and through me. My whole life and ministry are the product of meditating on God’s Word.  Any good thing in my life or ministry can be traced back to how God’s Word has changed me.

The truth will make you free, but it’s only the truth that you know that sets you free.

What you don’t know is hindering you.