Why doesn’t spiritual growth happen in your life like you want—like God wants? Jesus says it’s because the soil of your heart is preventing it. You’ve got a soil issue: hardened soil – you’ve become spiritually calloused, shallow soil – your attitude toward the things of God has become cavalier, or cluttered soil – your priorities are unguarded and are squeezing God out. If any of those describe you, allow the Holy Spirit to do some soil analysis, because once you identify and remove the growth barriers, Jesus also says unbelievable kingdom fruitfulness will happen—thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted— growth that is beyond human comprehension.
The Journey: Luke 8:4-8
Jesus told this parable: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.” When he said this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
The Parable of the Sower is fundamentally a story about spiritual growth, which is God’s intention for you. He created you with the capacity to grow.
Think about how newborns grow. Physically, their growth-rate in the first year of life is stunning. Their eating is non-stop, so that by the end of year one, they’ve gone from six to eight pounds to around twenty. It is not uncommon for babies to triple in size. It is amazing
That kind of growth should also be true of our spiritual life. And as his child, our Father hopes and expects us to grow up to think, act and become increasingly like his firstborn. That’s called Christlikeness. But far too often, our Heavenly Father doesn’t see that in us.
Rather, he sees lives paralyzed by fear, doubt, hurt, shame, or choked by the pursuit of temporal stuff and fleshly pleasures — what we might call Christ-unlikeness. Professor Robert Mulholland said, “being conformed to the image of Christ [must begin] primarily at the point of our unlikeness to his image.”
Jesus told this story to help us identify and eliminate our growth barriers. Each barrier is tied to variable within the soil, or our spiritual receptivity. He mentions three:
The first growth barrier is hardened soil. (v.4) Some seed fell on the path where man and beast walked, leaving it hardpacked. If seed fell there, it wouldn’t have a chance. Seed needs soft soil.
Unfortunately, our hearts can become hard toward God’s Word. Why? The Bible gives several reasons: One is sin: Hebrews 3:13 says the deceit of sin hardens us. Are you entertaining sin? Two is disappointment: Hebrews 10:38 infers hardening can come from suffering and sadness. Three is bitterness: Hebrews 12:15 says a root of bitterness will harden you to God’s grace.
The growth barrier Jesus is describing here is spiritual callousness. So if you’re allowing sin, disappointment or bitterness to go unchecked, what’s God calling you to do? Repent of it and release it. The path back to soft soil always goes through repentance. Repentance opens a crack in even the hardest of hearts, where amazingly the seed of God’s Word will find a way to grow.
The second growth barrier is shallow soil. (v.5) Much of Israel was nothing more than rock covered by a couple of inches of topsoil. When a seed sprouted roots, they hit rock, and had no chance to deepen—and no chance to thrive.
The growth barrier Jesus is describing here is a casual attitude toward God. What does that mean? It’s faith that doesn’t develop a strong devotion. It’s discipleship that doesn’t exercise the disciplines of prayer, giving, study, and service. It’s spirituality that’s me-centered rather than God-directed and others-focused. It’s Christianity that’s unserious, cavalier.
If that’s you, your faith is shallow. So what action will lead to deepening your soil? Repent and return. Confess your shallowness. Then return to doing what you did when you first came to love Jesus (Rev. 2:5). You submerged yourself in prayer, serving, in sharing. You soaked in God’s Word—meditating, memorizing, intentionally applying scripture. You spent time with God’s people. That kind of heart-soil grows rooted disciples.
The third growth barrier is cluttered soil. (v.7) It’s soft and deep enough to sustain growth, but it’s wasting its nutrients on weeds. It’s choked by competition with stuff. The growth barrier here is unguarded priorities. You’re not deliberately defiant or superficial, you allow the concerns of life and the lure of wealth — worry weeds — to distract you. I think Jesus would say it’s the most dangerous soil condition of all because it’s subtle and justifiable.
So what course of action is needed here? Repent and reprioritize. (Mt. 6:33) You’ll need to do some weeding because worry weeds don’t just voluntarily go away. You do spiritual weeding by re-prioritizing your calendar to allow God to be first in your schedule. You reprioritize your financial life to defeat the deceit of wealth. If you’re going to thrive, you’ve got to reprioritize!
Now the good in this story is that Jesus says where you cultivate soil that’s soft and deep and uncluttered, unbelievable growth and fruitfulness will happen! At the end of this parable Jesus says in verse 23, “The good soil represents the hearts of those who truly accept God’s message and produce a huge harvest—thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted.” He’s saying the kingdom fruitfulness that God plans for you is beyond human comprehension. And Jesus said over in John 15:8, “It’s to my Father’s glory that you bear much fruit.”
Spiritual growth is not an event, it’s a way of life; it’s not a destination you reach, it happens on the way. That’s why we must continually offer God the kind of heart soil in which the seed of his kingdom can grow – soft, uncluttered and dedicated. As we do, we won’t need to worry about growth, for God himself guarantees that unbelievable spiritual abundance will happen in us.
Do you desire that kind of spiritual growth and kingdom fruitfulness? Offer him your soil!
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