Dirt

Here’s The Word:

Luke 8:5-8 A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

I absolutely love this. Why? Because of the initial assessment that we’re ALL some form of dirt(or ground). We have no reason in ourselves to glory in anything other than the grace of God that changes rocky hearts to the kind of soft, nutrient-rich dirt that produces an abundance of fruit. This is one of the wonderful times in Scripture where a parable is given and its clear interpretation immediately follows. I find it interesting because it seems that we've created some sort of mental connection between clarity and ease, but I don’t think that’s the case. The truth behind God being distinctly clear only tells me that He really wants us to understand and pursue being the right kind of dirt. Not easy, but worth it.

So, this parable talks about God Himself as the sower. A sower with good seed. And as the sower, He doesn’t just want to throw seed out; He wants what seed produces. Fruit. However, there’s an equation involved – seed plus (what) equals fruit?
The big question in this may be –Why doesn’t He just throw the seed to the good soil? Because that’s not the point of the parable. This parable is given to us, for our benefit. This is for us to examine ourselves and be honest about how receptive (rich soil) we are to receive and reproduce. In our self-assessment, we have to admit to being one of four types of ground and this is where we should take serious inventory. Here's the four aforementioned "dirts".

Wayside – the first ground is “the wayside”. Here’s where I need to clarify something: often times we read The Bible and immediately we put on our “Bible minds”. We become overly theological and in so doing, remove the practicality of how this really touches our everyday lives. SO I’m going to try something – I’m going to relate these “grounds” to Facebook people. People you may or may not know….or even people that may be you.
Wayside people don’t have to be cold, heartless, God haters. They may be pleasant people in many ways but the seed, the fruit-producing Word of God has ZERO place in their lives. They may be healthy and fit, cordial and kind and peaceful and pleasant but it’s got nothing to do with Jesus. They may just have a moral responsibility about themselves to be the best “them” they can be. They don’t attack people for their beliefs, they just don’t have room for that kind of stuff in their lives. They’re not oblivious to the idea of Jesus and “all that”, just no receptivity to The Gospel and therefore no personal use which produces zero fruit for The Sower.

Now Rocks are better than wayside, but it’s by no means a done deal. Here we get a good idea of the persistence of the ‘good seed’. It actually does an initial “take”, even in rocks. This signifies a person who may look the part on the surface. They may post things that give “shout outs” to God, Jesus and things like that. They may “Like” and say “Amen” to the popular stuff on Facebook. Yet there is no real depth in their lives to sustain a real fruit-producing relationship.
They’re Facebook page is all over the place. They’re likely to have lots of friends and may very well be highly intellectual and knowledgeable about many things. See, it’s hard to recognize what lies beneath the surface. This parable only implies that the “wayside” are unsaved. Rocks may be saved just not consistently Christian in a way that produces lasting fruit.

Thorns – to me, the thorn ridden ground has a tragic existence; The seed “springs up” offering promise but then there’s something more sinister going on – for them, the seed is in contention with other “growing” things. For these people, life doesn’t reflect a consistent progress in good directions. These are most people. They experience ups and downs where they can shout a hearty Amen one minute and fall into a relentless anxiety the next. They’re trying to navigate being a comfortable balance of “Christian” but not overly religious so they can still embrace unprofitable things they enjoy. They’ll start a post asking for prayer or consignment to a blessing one day and something profane the next. The Bible asks the question as to whether a spring produce fresh and bitter water at the same time (James 3:11) It can’t – This is where God clarifies that the fruit, bears witness of the seed. These people may not be trying to be counterfeit, but because they’re not allowing patience to have its perfect work (James 1:4-8) they are not allowing The Sower to be pleased in His Word not returning to Him void. They may even consider some of their thorns to be blessings – but that’s a different blog for a different time.

Good ground – this is what we should all be striving to be. If we can really receive what this means, we won’t be trying to promote ourselves as “Good”. We still know that we’re dirt. However, we’re dirt with a purpose; providing fruit back to The Sower. If we take this parable to heart, we see that being good dirt is not easy. What’s easy is allowing the thorns to stay because we’re used to them. Or letting the thorns stay because someone else is used to them. Or letting the thorns stay because we have a hard time being honest about what they are and letting The Sower cultivate good ground in us.

God clarifies His parable: Here’s His Word:

Luke 8:11-15 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.

At the end of the day, this is not about judging, it's about taking inventory.

Don't just be saved, desire and put effort into being GOOD DIRT!

In Him,
Cros