Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Job 23-24
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Matthew 13:18-23
Jesus: This is what the parable of the sower means. It is about the kingdom of heaven. When someone hears the story of the Kingdom and cannot understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away whatever goodness and holiness had been sown in the heart. This is like the seeds sown beside the road. You know people who hear the word of God and receive it joyfully—but then, somehow, the word fails to take root in their hearts. It is temporary. As soon as there is trouble for those people, they trip: those people are the seeds strewn on the rocky soil. And you know people who hear the word, but it is choked inside them because they constantly worry and prefer the wealth and pleasures of the world: they prefer drunken dinner parties to prayer, power to piety, and riches to righteousness. Those people are like the seeds sown among thorns. The people who hear the word and receive it and grow in it—those are like the seeds sown on good soil. They produce a bumper crop, 30 or 60 or 100 times what was sown.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
In these verses, Jesus explains His earlier parable. We talked about our missionary responsibility and how we might act as sower looking for those most receptive to the good news. Today, what if you are the soil? What kind of soil are you?
Are you like the rocky soil? Hard-headed and refuse to hear the word and understand it? Do you refuse to let God speak to you through the gospel and just play off the scriptures as so many fairy tales or exaggerations from overly zealous religious freaks? Do you flat refuse to hear God’s word in this day of “enlightened scientific knowledge about all things”? If you fit in that category, you’ll be as fruitful as that concrete like soil on the path beaten down by everyone walking on it. The word won’t get through to you because of your refusal to listen.
Are you like the soil plagued with thorns that choke out the crops? You listen and accept the truth, but then get out in the world and listen to what they have to say and are swayed by their argument, too. You find yourself living life by the last message you heard. So was the last message from God or from the world? Is it Sunday or Tuesday? Are you at church or at work? You bend according to the company you keep and have no opinion of your own, unable to stand on your own two feet and make a decision about which side you will take.
The problem with that stance is you really have made a decision. You’re like the church at Laodecia Jesus had John send the letter about being lukewarm. Thinking everything was okay when Jesus says He would vomit you out of His mouth. He would rather you be cold as ice than lukewarm. At least then you might have a chance of seeing your lost condition and changing. But trying to grow among the thorns, you get just enough nourishment, just enough of the water and nutrients from the soil that you think you’re okay. But you’re not. The thorns choke the life out of you until finally you just wither away.
Hopefully, you are like the good soil Jesus talks about. Rich in nutrients, loose and ready to accept the seed the sower plants. Ready to hear God’s word and plant it in your heart. You’re ready to not just hear His word, but meditate on it, study it, then put it into practice. You’re ready to live it until other see your good works and glorify God because of them. Hopefully, you are like that good soil that creates a bumper crop at harvest time – 30, 60, 100 fold – bringing new disciples into the fold. Helping others find Christ and knowing His peace and forgiveness is for them, too.
Hopefully, you are like that good soil that Jesus talks about. Ready to receive all He has for you and ready to be part of His master plan to bring others to know His will that all would come to the saving knowledge of God’s Son. Ready to give testimony to all God has done in your life and act as His emissary in a world that has too many rocks and thorns and not enough ground ready to plow.
Hopefully, you are like that good soil that Jesus talks about, ready to become the person He created you to be. Full of His Spirit. Acting on His behalf. Sharing His message. Bringing others into His kingdom.
The great thing about the story of the sower and the soil is that you get to pick what kind of soil you want to be. So which is it? Are you the rocky soil, the thorny soil, or the good soil? I pray you make the right choice. Your eternal destiny depends on it.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.