Proverbs 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
In the foundational parable of the sower taught by Jesus in Mark chapter 4, we discover that hearing God’s Word and bearing fruit is relative to the stewardship of our hearts. It is to be noted that the same seed that bears fruit in the one instance is the same seed that ends up being rejected, causes offense, or is choked in others. And where do these various responses come from? The heart. So we could also call the parable of the sower the parable of the heart.
In John 15, Jesus tells us that it is the will of God that His branches be fruitful. In fact, the greater the pruning, the greater the fruit-bearing. Even a born again, regenerated believer has to deal with temptations, along with the hourly and daily assault of worldly and fleshly lusts that seek to undermine the word of God from taking root in our lives. So in this parable, Jesus lays out for us the kinds of things that prevent us from bearing fruit.
We do well to take note of what these spiritual termites are that cause people to reject, run away from, or flat out choke the life out of the seed of God’s Word from bearing fruit in our lives. Like an airline security machine can scan the contents of my luggage, I need to allow the Word of God to scan the content of my heart.
May The Spirit of God move freely and powerfully in our lives today, in order that we may be fruitful and bring glory to God. Selah
