Your Flowerpot

Did you ever think of your heart as being like the inside of a big flowerpot? -sc

10/26/2018

Did you ever think of your heart as being like the inside of a big flowerpot? Imagine that! It’s just waiting for some beautiful flowers to grow. Or some tasty, delicious food to grow. But everyone knows that in order to have pretty flowers, or good fruit, a few things are needed.

One of the most important things you need is good soil. Good soil provides nourishment and a healthy home for the plant seeds that will be sown. As the area is watered and receives sunlight, it begins to grow...

That’s how it is with God and His Word too. Jesus said that His Word is like a seed. It is planted in our hearts, and it is very important that good soil is there to receive it. In good soil, the plant will grow healthy and strong, and it will eventually bear some wonderful, good fruit. In other words, good things come out of the person who has good soil in their heart. They will have a life with God, and it will be different than the lives of others around them who don’t know God. Do you have good soil?

Jesus gives us a way to know what kind of soil we have in our hearts. He described it and you will find it in the Bible in Matthew 13: 1-23 (You will see it at the end of this paper.)

Here are some things to help you know....

If you have good soil in your heart, you want to hear what God has to say. It’s important to you and you care about it. And even more importantly than that, you will want to DO what God says! If you’re reading this right now, I hope you are a person who really cares about what God says and wants to DO what God says! Jesus said that people who have good soil in their hearts -- that hear His Word, hold tightly to His Word and DO His Word -- will bear much, much good fruit – even up to 100 times the amount of seed that was sown. Wow! That means that lots and lots of good things will come out of their lives. And I don’t mean things for “themselves” that they accomplish. I mean, they live their life with God and help other people to do the same. That’s where I want to be – do YOU?

Jesus also talked about other kinds of soil that aren’t so good.

1) The first kind of bad soil is a hardened piece of ground. The seed that lands there, bounces on the surface and the birds pick it off and carry it away. Those people are ones who just don’t listen; they don’t understand and don’t want to understand what God might be trying to tell them. They think they have life all figured out!

2) Another type of soil is one that has thorny plants and weeds growing in it. The tender plant shoots up, but the thorns and briars grow up and take over, choking out the plant. The “thorny weeds” are the worries and greed of this life. People with that kind of heart are all concerned and worried about things of the world. For you, maybe you strive to be popular, or you try to get people to notice you or you want those new blue jeans so bad. Or maybe you have to have the newest computer game, or you gotta have the coolest haircut. Or if you are a smart person, you worry about your grades, or you want to outscore everybody, so it “consumes” you. Or if sports is your “thing” than you have pride and boasting on the inside. All of those things are the weeds and thorns of the heart that make the flower pot an impossible place for good things to grow. Those weeds “choke out” the tender plant. There’s not room for God’s Word to be sown there!

3) Another kind of soil is the rocky soil. There’s some good soil on the surface, so the seed falls in okay. It even sprouts and puts up a shoot and maybe a small plant. But as soon as the sun gets too hot, that baby plant withers and dies. Since the root couldn’t go deep in the rocky, shallow soil, the tender plant has no chance of survival in the “heat of the day.” The “hot sun” stands for the “pressures” of life. You have great intentions to honor your parents, but when the moment comes to make the Right choices....you get sidetracked because you’re too shallow. You give in to your own selfishness or fears. Maybe other children around you are getting something you don’t have and you want it, instead of trusting your mom. Or you don’t choose Jesus’ way, because you get sucked into doing a wrong thing that someone else is doing. When that “heat” turns up on you, only good, deep soil will have roots that go deep enough, so that the plant won’t wither in the heat.

So what kind of soil have you been? Will you ask God about it? Because HE wants you to have very good soil in your heart!! It’s the kind of heart that hears the Words of Jesus, holds on tightly to them, puts them into practice and then good things are produced out of that life.

Back to the flowerpot. In even more basic terms, this is the deal:

You are either putting more and more garbage in the “flowerpot” of your heart or you are clearing out the trash in order to make a place for good soil. Did you know that every single person who was ever born starts out with garbage in

their hearts? And as they get older, there’s more and more garbage “built up” in the trash pile. BUT, only a very few people ever do anything about it! Isn’t that silly? Most people would rather live with the stinking, rotting garbage of sin, than have healthy, rich soil for God’s Word to take root. SMART people pitch the garbage out. Foolish people hold on to the trash. NOW, here’s some great news for you: Since you are young, your pile hasn’t gotten huge yet. It is easier to get rid of a little garbage, than a lot of garbage. We’re here to tell you that God very much wants you to start getting rid of the pile of garbage in your heart.

Here is something to help you. When you are being really honest, you know how your conscience feels “guilty” about certain things? It’s because your conscience is like an extra “sense organ” (like your eyes and ears) that God put in you when you were born. It is there to help you know the difference between what’s right and what’s wrong. When your conscience tells you that you shouldn’t do something, LISTEN! Just like with Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket, right?  LISTEN. That is the “sense organ” that God gave you to get your attention. If you decide to listen to your conscience, you will do what it’s telling you and start pitching the garbage out of your heart. If you’re a big mouth or a know-it-all, sassy, rebellious, snotty, stuck-up, a bragger, glued to the mirror, selfish, jealous, you think mean thoughts, you’re self-centered...whatever the “garbage” is...your conscience will help you. You DO have a choice and a chance today, to decide to start pitching out the trash by not doing those things anymore. You can choose to start clearing out the trash and start making room for Jesus and His Words that He wants to plant in you.

It’s very simple – your job is to start now, by turning to God with your heart and asking Him to help you. Tell Him you are sorry for living in a way that’s filled up with the garbage of sin in your heart. Tell Him that you want good soil that is a decent place for His Words to land.

If you do that, we PROMISE you that it will be the VERY BEST decision you could ever make. It will put you on a path that is clearing the way for the Best News of All – and THAT is, that Jesus, God’s Son wants to come and make His Home inside of you. Jesus wants you! He loves you! He’s got some fabulous and mind-blowing things in store for your future.

But for now, your job is to start recognizing the “garbage” of sin in your heart and do something about it. STOP with the vanity, competition, jealousy, meanness, shallowness, disobedience to your parents, disrespect of authority...whatever the case, STOP, today. Please, will you? If you turn your mind and heart to God and get real honest about it, He will help you. Ask Him to open the “eyes of your heart”

to who He is. Two thousand years ago, God sent Jesus, His Son to the earth, to die in your place. Jesus WANTED to do it. He willingly let Himself be beat up and nailed to a cross...and with it, your sins were nailed there too... IF you 1) recognize that and then 2) ask Him for forgiveness for how you’ve hurt Him and 3) give your life to Him forever and ever...Some of the first people who gave their lives to Jesus, heard it like this,

“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sin. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off – for all whom the Lord our God will call. With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.”

Jesus promises that if you put your life in His hands and give Him full ownership and direction of your life, He will cleanse you and make you a brand new person. A brand new, clean heart with no garbage! Totally clean with a wonderful place for good plants to sprout and grow.

Think about it and ask God to help you understand. He said that “Unless you’re like a little child, you can’t enter the kingdom...” so you are in a pretty special place, wouldn’t you say?  Be the child God has made you to be. He wants to clean you and bring you to Himself. AND He wants to bring you into the real Family of GOD! This isn’t supposed to be something you do “on your own”! No way! It’s so much more than that because there are bunches of other people all around you who love Him too and who want to do what God says. His plan for you is to live with and for HIS people every day for the rest of your life. In exchange, He promises you true life in His Son, Jesus, and some fantastic relationships with some pretty special people.

Begin today to turn your sights toward God and let Him soften your heart. Give Him good soil to plant in -- a good piece of ground for His Word. He is soooo Worth it!! 

(Matthew 13:1-25)

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables,

saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop--a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He who has ears, let him hear.”

The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”

He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “’You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

“Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”