Making the Seeds and Words Last and Grow
Luke 8:11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
Luke 8:12 The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.
Luke 8:13 And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.
When we throw out seeds, we aren’t helpless and out of control. The seed in this parable is the word of God. We can pass it out to people, distribute it, in wise ways. Even after we share the Good News that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead so you can have eternal life, we can help the message stick.
In this section, two things happen. Some of the Good News is taken away by the devil himself. Wow! This can happen in a lot of ways, like thinking “you only felt that way because the music made you feel that way” or even “that was a good thought, but I’m in the real world now.”
So do we fight those urges by stopping the music and staying away from whatever the real world is? Of course not. A landscaper once explained to me that a green grassy lawn is actually one of them most unnatural things you could grow. How do you do it?
Reseeding
You just keep on re-planting grass seed and new grass grows as the old grass dies. If we keep sewing seeds of Christ’s salvation and the accompanying love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, and self-control, we won’t just be feeding the birds.
As my family drives home from church, we don’t talk about the grocery list, the busy afternoon, or even the cool new building going up down the street from the church building. We review review review what happened and what was talked about in church that day. It drives those seeds a little deeper in to the thatch so they don’t get taken away.
The other instance is about stamina and perseverance. Sure, the seeds went deep and grew, but they didn’t last when trouble came. Again, talking about what we’ve heard helps this too. The more we can think about the Word, the more angles we can see it and the more we can make it our own, the more likely we are to keep it.
Once you get in the habit of summing up a sermon or a reading in a few words, you’ll be able to carry it around in your head for the whole day. When the time of testing comes, drill back down to what you’ve carried around in your head and in your soul. The Lord loves to work out His truth in our lives every day. He’ll do it, because He really wants us to remember it.
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