A Compilation of Grace

Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Matthew 13:3-9 NKJV

This parable is told in the broader sense of the field being the world (the hearts of the people of the world), but it can also be looked at as the field being an individual. The Bible speaks of our hearts as being fields. At any point in our lives, we can have one or more of the soil types described in our hearts.

The Stony Ground

In this ground, the soil where the seeds fall is shallow because of the stones. In the shallow soil, the seeds sprout quickly. That means that the plants also have shallow roots, so they cannot reach the deeper water table. When it gets hot, the stunted plants wither and die.

In all the Gospels, the Word is received with joy. The Word endures in the person’s heart for a while, but then they have no root and fall away due to tribulation (pressure) or persecution because of the Word. In Luke’s Gospel it says they believe but fall away in a time of temptation (adversity).

In this portion of the parable, I want to focus on the stones. The word stone is the Greek word petra which means a mass of stone. This isn’t tiny gravel; these are large stones—it would take work to move them and if they are big enough they may even just have to be plowed around. Plowing around any larger stones leads to crooked rows and an inefficient harvest. Because of the hard nature of stones, it takes a lot of effort to affect any change in them.

The Stones As Beliefs and Ways We Hold

We can have beliefs and ways that we firmly cling to and live by, even though they may be incorrect beliefs or ways that are keeping us from growing and moving forward. Like the stones, our hearts can be hard in these ways or areas of beliefs when faced with the truth. We don’t necessarily want to hear that the thing we believe is incorrect or the way we are operating in might not be working, but then we feel afflicted or burdened when things don’t turn out the way we want. Maybe in our spiritual immaturity, we get in over our heads and are unable to stand up to persecution. Or maybe due to that same lack of understanding, we fail in a time of temptation.

Incorrect Belief

I call myself a recovering Pharisee. Pharisees were spiritual leaders in the Bible who were big on following the rules. They looked good on the outside, but that didn’t mean their hearts were right or that they walked closely with God. As a young person, I was in that exact place. I was so good at following the rules at Christian school, that my friends jokingly said I was perfect—sadly, I began to kind of believe that I was.

I wore my robe of Christianity, doing and saying all the right things, and looking rather good on the outside. I went to Bible college with the idea of being “an old maid missionary,” because that would surely be what was most pleasing to God. After two years, I left school to work and earn the rest of my tuition. I’m sure there were times that I seemed somewhat pious to my coworkers. When it was time to go back to college, I finally realized that maybe being “an old maid missionary” wasn’t what God was calling me to after all. Although I did return to college for one semester with a different biblical focus, I found myself called away from there and back into the office where I was working.

Around this time, I moved out of my parents’ house and into my own apartment. I was out on my own and feeling free of the restraints that my perceived life calling had held over me. Over the years, I had become proud of my own self-righteous abilities and started thinking that I could hang out with sin and not be affected by it. I went to church on Sundays and even taught Sunday school, but during the week I was busy flirting with sin. Without a close, personal walk with Jesus, I had shallow roots and was in grave danger of withering and dying spiritually.

Proverbs 16:18 (MSG) says, “First pride, then the crash—the bigger the ego, the harder the fall.” Never could truer words have been spoken of me at that time. Flirting with sin led to closer association with it, which eventually lead to my crashing fall.

Removing the Religious Stone

Thankfully, I never lost my faith or walked away from God. But even after I repented and knew God forgave me, I struggled with the idea that God would welcoming me back unconditionally. There certainly had to be something I needed to do to prove myself and earn back his love. The religious stone of rule following went from being on the “I can overcome sin and be perfect simply by following the rules” side, to being flipped over to the “following the rules will help me earn God’s love and get back in his good graces” side.

It took a long time for Jesus to dig that religious stone of rule-following performance out of my heart. Through it all, he was kind and gently wooed me with his love. Jeremiah 31:3 (NKJV) says, “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” God showed me over and over in so many ways that I was loved not for what I did or didn’t do, but I was simply loved as I am because I am his beloved creation. I have also come to know how important it is to have close fellowship with God. I can tell it in my life when I get lazy and don’t spend time in fellowship with him and in his Word.

Things Set In Stone

Besides the stony places of incorrect beliefs, we can have expectations of how things should be or ways that we think things should be done—things that are “set in stone” in our hearts. When these expectations aren’t met or something isn’t done the “way we’ve always done it,” it can cause us to stumble and fall away.

False Expectations

I have been going through the 19^th Annotation, which is a spiritual exercise of prayer that follows a pattern of meditation, contemplation, and scripture reading. This week’s readings have been in the Garden of Gethsemane with Jesus. Part of the discipline is imagining yourself as a participant in what is happening. As I read in Matthew 26 about Jesus’ betrayal by Judas, I was struck by the line, “At that point all of his disciples ran away and abandoned him.” (Matthew 26:56b TPT)

Just before that, as the crowd was about to arrest Jesus, Peter pulled out his sword and chopped off a man’s ear. Considerable chaos could have broken loose then with the well-armed crowd coming against the disciples who were not so well-armed. But Jesus still had authority to calm a storm, and he immediately spoke peace to the situation (even restoring the man’s ear).

It’s at this point that Jesus very clearly states that even though he could ask God to send legions of angels to take care of him that is not part of God’s plan. Instead, he submits himself for arresting. In my mind’s eye, I turn from witnessing all of this to see that every one of his disciples has fled the scene. Why did they run away?

Jesus’ teachings clearly showed the Kingdom of Heaven that he brought was different than the world as we know it. He also very clearly told the disciples, “This is who I am… This is what is going to happen…” They heard and believed these things, and they believed Jesus was the Messiah. Still, they viewed it all through the lens of who they expected Messiah to be for them in that time. The seeds of Jesus truth didn’t have deep roots because they were growing against the stones of the disciples’ belief and expectation of who Messiah would be. The truth withered and the disciples ran away in the moment of crisis. Even after Jesus arose from the dead, they still struggled to believe he was alive until they actually saw him again. It was then that the stones of expectation were rolled away, leaving rich fields that indeed produced 100-fold as the seeds of the Gospel truth were scattered throughout the world.

Stone Free Fields

There are many different forms incorrect beliefs can take, as well as many types of “set in stone” expectations and ways we can hold. As we walk in close fellowship with Jesus and keep ourselves in his Word, he will dig around these stony obstacles in our hearts, removing them as we are ready. Being in fellowship with other believers who are actively seeking the Lord is important too. They can encourage us and help us to grow in the Lord. These things help prepare the fields of our hearts for fruitfulness and uncover the treasure Jesus has placed in us so that we can shine for him.