Attack And Counterattack
Intercession is powerful and effective. We can certainly take ground for God's kingdom through our prayer and intercession. Sometimes it's a war out there, isn't it? The enemy doesn't want to give up the ground that we are taking for God's kingdom. We are like an army invading their territory. It's not that we take them by surprise. They can see us coming even before we get there and they know what our agenda is. It is more of a case that they can't do anything about it. But they try to stop it.
It's very important for us to realize that every time we establish a beachhead, we have to support that thing in prayer. If you are involved in a prayer project to take some ground for God's kingdom, you are not done as soon as the ground is taken. You need to hold that ground. You need to keep it on your mind and pray for that for the next 40 days. Just continue to pray for it and lift it up to the Lord and cover it. Because when the marines come and establish a beach head, they don't say, "Now that was good. Let's just go back to Hawaii and drink coffee and sip on cokes." They don't do that. They don't take a break as soon as they win the territory. Instead they establish it, they fortify it, the sustain it and they keep on moving. And we have to realize that the church is an army. Whenever we establish a beachhead, we have got to go on and take the ground. And we must support that in prayer.
What do you find? One of the things you find is Elijah. He has this awesome encounter with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. They spend all day with this thing. We see the prophets of Baal are trying to get their god to do something, and nothing was happening. They were cutting themselves and doing everything to try and get their god to do something. And he wasn't doing anything. And Elijah was sitting back and watching. I can see him yawning and saying "Are we going to do this all day?" And finally he said, "Ok, let me show you how this is done."
Then he stacks up the wood and he pours on the water and he prays. And fire comes down from heaven and consumes the offering. And the prophets of Baal start running. The people catch them. They kill them. It was a triumph for God, right? Well, what happened next? Queen Jezebel comes tromping after Elijah and says, "I'm going to get you!" And he starts running from her.
See the pattern here? Attack - counter attack. We see it over and over.
Come to the new testament. Look at the book of Acts, chapter 3. This lame man was healed. Peter preached the gospel. And what happened is that at least 5,000 goats became sheep. And that is not including the women and the kids. It's like there were the goats and the sheep.. and the goats became sheep... when ever you loose 5,000 of your church members in one day, you get a little upset. And this is what happened.
Now let me just read you a few of these things that showed the religious leader's reaction. This is in Acts chapter 4, verses 1 to 3:
The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. (NIV)
Then the story goes on of how they had an encounter with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Then, at the end of this, they wanted to do something to them. At it says, "Now the counsel then threatened them further. But they finally let them go, because they didn't know how to punish them without starting a riot, for everyone was praising God." (Acts 4:17, 21 NLT)
Well, they finally let them go. And then when they got back with their group, it says this. They begin praying, "Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of Your holy servant Jesus." (Acts 4:29-30 NIV).
And so whenever there was an attack, there was a counter-attack. These guys didn't let up. They said, "Let's go on further. Let's establish this thing even further." They were threatened and told, "Don't do this thing. No longer preach in the name of Jesus." They didn't say "Oh Lord, how can we do this now, since they told us not to?" They didn't do that. They said, "We're going to go further. We are going to press in further. And we are going to proclaim the gospel." And then there was another reaction and there was another counter attack. Eventually we find that they were putting them in jail, and beating them. And then they stoned Stephen. But the gospel was advancing and advancing and advancing. And there was another counter attack, but it continued advancing. And that is what it is about: advancing the gospel.
Every time there is a move of the spirit, I understand that the enemy is right in there to try to stop it, to try to throw water on it, to kill it. But God's grace prevails and He gives us whatever we need to overcome. It is just a principle.
So what I do is that since I realize that there is going to be the counter attack to extinguish the fire of God, I look for it. Now, it is not like I am paranoid or anything. It is just that I am aware of the schemes of darkness. The scripture says "Do not be ignorant of his schemes" (2 Cor 2:11). So I am aware of this. Whenever I begin to see this rising up, I recognize what that is. And immediately that is where I begin focusing my prayer. I begin focusing my attention on it.
But I realize this. A lot of the work that the enemy does to try to throw out the fire of God doesn't require a lot of work on his part. Because a lot of it, we do ourselves. We simply become pawns in his hands because there is so much stuff within us and around us that do enough to put out the fire of God.
Unfortunately, the biggest resistance to a move of God does not come from enemy resistance. Often the biggest resistance to God's move comes from the hearts of God's people. We can become aware of enemy strategies and combat them in prayer. But we are often unaware of the strategies of our own hearts, of our own flesh and of our own mind and spirit. So what I'd like to do over the next few weeks is to look at four types of hearts and which type of heart we need to have to substain a move of God. And then I will talk about how to get from where we are to where we need to be to cooperate with God, advance His kingdom and maintain the move of God that He desires to start in our midst.
Hard Soil
In our last lesson, we examined the strategies of the enemy to resist a move of God. We noticed that Satan never quits, he never gives up. It is not enough to take ground from the enemy in prayer, we must maintain it in prayer once we have taken it. Using military terms, we don't just take the beach and return back to homebase. Instead, we establish a beachhead and then we begin to advance. We discussed these principles in detail. And then we mentioned that the biggest foe in maintaining a move of God is not Satanic activity and counterattacks. It is not spiritual warfare. The biggest resistance to a move of God often comes from our own hearts and attitudes and priorities.
That is what I want to address in these next lessons. Not the attacks from outside, but the attacks from within and specifically from within you. Whenever the fire of God comes, do you have what it takes to sustain that fire? Do you have what it takes to stay with it, to hang in there, and to sustain it? If the statistics hold true in the Word, about 25% of us will be able to hang on to the fire. Twenty five per cent of us will be able to have the kind of conditions in our life that are conducive to His fire staying and being sustained.
I know that many of us have been experiencing the fire of the Lord lately in our own heart and in our own soul. The question is are you going to be able to sustain that? I want to look at the parable of the sower and the seed in Matthew 13.
In this parable, it speaks about the person who is able to receive the word of the Lord. The person who is able to receive the message of God. This is a principle that describes four different kinds of hearts. It descries how one is going to react when encountering the presence of God. Whenever you encounter Him, we're going to react one of four different ways.
Let's read the story from Matthew, chapter 13. "Jesus spoke many things to them in parables saying, 'Behold, the sower went out to sow; and as he sowed, some seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up. And the others fell upon the rocky places, where they did not have much soil; and immediately they sprang up, because they had no depth of soil. But when the sun had risen, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And others fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out. And others fell on the good soil, and yielded a crop, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.'"
And then Jesus explains that parable later on in verse 18. "Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road."
"And the one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word, and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away."
"And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful."
"And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit, and brings forth, some a hundred fold, some sixty, and some thirty."
I believe this is the picture of the kinds of hearts that receive the kingdom and receive the glory of the presence of the Lord. These are also four different kinds of reactions we have whenever we encounter the presence and the power of God. Our ability to sustain the move of God, the power of God, and the fire of God will depend on whether you are the fourth one and have the good soil.
The first heart I would call a closed heart. A closed heart because these are a people that have a hard soil. They cannot receive. This is one where the path was hard and because of that it had been downtrodden quite a bit. The seeds could not penetrate. Therefore, the birds could easily come and pluck up the seeds. The kingdom of darkness is just ready to pluck it up when there is a hardness that is there.
Why would a person have a closed heart? There are several reasons. One is that they are just too tired to go on. See what happens is that the move of God comes and they look at this move and go, "Now, this looks like a lot of work to me. This is going to take a lot of time. I don't know. I don't know if I'm ready for this. It's going to require too much from me. I'm already worn out. I'm ready to relax. I'm ready to give up this church stuff." They approach it like they do retirement. "I'm going to work hard and then relax and retire. Pass it on to somebody else." It's like this. The person is ready for the luxury cruise and all of a sudden this battleship shows up. The person says, "I didn't sign up for that one." So when the fire of God comes, they close their heart and miss God.
There could be another reason in that they realize if they get too close to this move of God, it is going to mess with their status quo. Any move of God is going to mess with your status quo. Your ability to just continue doing the same old thing. It's going to mess with their religion, religiosity, and lifestyle. There is going to be some things in your lifestyle that you are going to have to give up. Anytime God moves, He is going to mess with you. That is not a threat, it is a promise. Anytime you experience a move of God, He is going to be messing with you. This is because He wants to work within your heart, to transform it to be more like Jesus. He will cause the things that are not right to rise up and be exposed. He will cause attitudes that you wish were not there to raise to the surface so that you can begin to cooperate with Him in changing them. Transformation sounds glorious in theory, but in practice it is painful and it is messy. God loves you too much to leave you where you are. He is going to work His transformation in your heart, and that will be messy for a period.
Another reason that people will have a closed heart is because God will not move in the way they think. It simply doesn't fit their perception. What this move is doesn't measure up to my perception of what God should do. Scripture says this. In John 3, Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus. "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sounds, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit" The Spirit is going to move. We cannot contain Him. We like to put God in this nice little box with certain perimeters and when He comes, He will look like this. He will look nice and neat and proper.
Isn't that what the Pharisees did with Jesus? I mean Jesus came and they said, "Well, I know what the Messiah is supposed to look like and You're not it. You are not the Messiah." Jesus did not meet any of their criteria. He didn't fit their perception. What happens is that God comes and He shows up and begins to do things, and we go, "Hey, He wasn't supposed to do it like that. Surely, this cannot be God." So we close our heart.
It might be a good time to stop and examine your heart. Are there areas of it that you have been closing off to God? Are there things that God wants to reach in, expose and heal that you want to keep pushed down and hidden? Do you find yourself saying "No" to God? "No, God, You can't touch that area. I don't want to go there." Or "No, God that is mine and I am not willing to give it up." Or "No God, I've been in the refiner's fire long enough. I am not willing to stay here any longer." This might be a very good time to decide to stop staying "no." Tell God that you are willing to cooperate with Him and invite Him to heal anything that needs to be healed. Invite Him to change anything that needs to be changed. Invite him to transform anything in you that He desires to transform, so that you can be more like Jesus.
Or are there mindsets that God needs to change? Do you find yourself saying, "That can't be God. He would not do it that way!" Has God been offending you in the ways He chooses to move and advance His kingdom? Is He giving His power and His annointing to new believers? Is God pouring His blessing on those who do not seem to have basic socials skills or know how to "act properly" in church? He is doing things in ways that are counter-intuitive? Well, He has a history of doing that. The Jews were looking for a conquering king, and they were offended by the gentle healer and shepherd. The Pharisees were looking for a great scholar and they were offended by Jesus' simple teachings that ordinary people could understand. The Sadducees were looking for grandure and status, and were offended by someone who looked like a vagabond and did not even have a home of his own. These people were offended and did not receive Jesus when God moved among them through the incarnation.
What about you? Are you expecting God to do things a certain way? Are you closing your heart to the move of God because He operates outside of your expectations? Why not stop right now and invite God to reveal any mindsets to you that might be holding you back. He will show you of you will ask Him, and then you can begin to move forward with God.
Rocky Soil
Let's do a quick review. We are discussing those things that resist or inhibit a move of God. In the first lesson, we looked at demonic or enemy resistance to the move of God. We examined how Satan fights back, so it is important it is to maintain through prayer and intercession the ground that we gained that way. We saw that the enemy does not stop or give up. We learned that we can't stop and kick back and relax after taking some ground for God's kingdom. We have to actively work with God to maintain it once we've obtained it.
The next lesson shared how the biggest resistance to God's move is not enemy attacks and counter-attacks from outside. The biggest and most effective resistance to the move of God comes from within the hearts of God's people. We looked at the parable of the sower from Matthew 13, and found that it represents four different types of hearts. When God moves there are four different ways we may respond to Him. In that lesson, we examined the first of those hearts, the "closed heart." We saw that sometimes people are just too tired or worn out to work with God to substain His move. (The solution to that is to come back to God and allow Him to refresh and invigorate you.) We also saw that sometimes people are resistant to God's move because they have their own agendas and desires, and God's agenda seems to "mess up our plans". Or God many need to do a deep work in their heart, but they don't want to go through the "pain" that often accompanies the "refiner's fire." We also saw that people's expectations of how God "should" do it can make the resist God when He moves a different way than they expected Him to. That was all represented by the first soil in the parable, the hard soil.
Now we are ready to move on and examine the next soil. The second one is the rocky soil. This is the one where the plant grows and it grows at a constant rate. In regular soil, part of it is under the ground and it grows downward, and then the rest of it grows up. But if it is on the rocky soil, it can't go continue down and will spring up quickly on the top. What happens is that since there is no root there of no foundation because of the rocks, the sun comes and they get burned. It gets scorched and withers. The truth is that when God shows up, there is going to be some heat coming and you are going to feel the heat. You are going to get burned and scorched if you don't have a strong, deep foundation.
The rocky soil is the person who embraces the move of God. God comes by and they say, "Yes, Lord, Yes!" All of a sudden you see them catapult and they shoot up. And you say, "Man, they grew will quick.! Look at the power they are experiencing. They grew quickly in the Lord."
But then they just shoot back down because there is no foundation. They grow up and then they go back down. Why? Because they have rocky soil. They have to get rid of the rocks. We have rocks in our life and they keep us from experiencing the fullness of the Lord. They keep us from having a deep foundation.
What are these rocks? Some of these rocks can be past or present wounds. Wounds that we have experienced. Wounds by someone. Wounds that we have not been able to adequately and fully address and put behind us. We've been hurt, wounded, and offended, and we are not able to get past the pain of those things. We're still hanging on to the pain. The pain is still there. We haven't received the cleaning from the Lord, Who would cleanse the pain and free us of the pain. We just hang on to this thing. It becomes a rock.
So what happens is that we begin to grow in the Lord, but all of a sudden that rock is too big there and we can't go too deep with Him. We are unable to get pass that rock. Now there are some people who have rocks, who want to keep their rocks. They have this pain (rocks), and they want to keep them. They've buried this thing down deep, and they've got this nice little soil up there that looks really good, but they've got rocks underneath and they are going to keep them. "I want to keep my wounds. I want to keep that pain." I don't know why anyone would want to do that, but there are those who do.
Then there are those who do this. "Lord, I want to go deep with You, but I can't because I can't get over this pain." So, they dig up this rock and they pull it up. "Oh Lord, this is keeping me from adequately walking with You. Oh Lord, would You please take this rock?" So they give it to Him. But then they take it back. They plant it back in the dirt. You cannot get past it. Hello? What happens is that the enemy doesn't have to work hard to disable you, because basically you just hang onto those rocks.
Another rock could be sin. Sin that you are unwilling to forsake. When the Lord comes and we experience the glory and Presence of the Lord, we get really convicted. We confess our sins to Him because we know we should. But we are not ready to forsake our sin because we know that after this thing passes over, we are going to go back to it. We don't really forsake it. We just confess it. We know we shouldn't do it, so we say, "Yes, Lord. Let me experience Your Presence and Glory. Forgive me for that sin." However, in the back of my mind, I have already determined that I will go back to that thing. You haven't forsake it. You haven't given it up. It is a temporary stoppage.
Then another rock would be called fractured relationships. Some of you have unbelieving spouses. God touches you at church. You go home, and in a few words, all your joy is gone. Some relationships are going to stay fractured, but you can change the way you approach life. I know that because we see a biblical example of this. When it comes to rocks, I like to look at Paul. Paul said this, "I put it behind me and I go ahead." The NKJV puts it this way: Philippians 3:13-14, "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
If you're going to have good soil, you have to get rid of your rocks. You have to put them behind you. You have to give them up. Do you know how farmers convert rocky soil into good soil? They can do it, but it takes some time and it takes some work ... it requires plowing the ground. The plow digs deep and breaks up the soil and causes the rocks to be raised to the surface. Then the farmer comes along behind the plow and picks up the rocks and carts them away.
God wants to plow some of your hearts in a similar fashion. Plowing can hurt. It can be painful when God digs deep and it brings your rocks up to the surface. And it may seem like God is taking things away from you when He removes those pesty rocks. But what He is really doing is getting rid of those thing in your life that keep you from being good soil. He wants to do this for you so you can have a solid foundation and go deep in Him. Will you cooperate with Him on this? You have to receive it and then claim it if you want good soil.
Hosea 10:12 says, "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you." Likewise, Jeremiah 4:3 says, "This is what the LORD says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem: 'Break up your unplowed ground and do not sow among thorns.'" In short, God is inviting us to cooperate with Him to get rid of those rocks and become good soil.
Let's take this out of the metaphor for a bit and get practical. How can you work with God to get the rocks out? How do you remove those things from your life that interfere with your walk with God? The first step is to invite God to examine your heart with you, to show you what is there and what He wants you to do about it. King David put it this way in Psalm 139, verses 23 to 24: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
The solution is that we go to God. We invite Him to examine us, make us aware of anything that needs to be changed. Then next step is to cooperate with us as He works His transformation in us. Choose to let go of those attitudes and sins that hold you back. Release the pain and allow God to heal you. Forgive those who have hurt you in the past and get rid of any bitterness. Stop doing those things you know are sin. If it is a struggle, bring them to God and ask Him to help you get His victory over them.
Weeds
We have spent the last two lessons examining different ways we can respond to God. These were taken from the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. Each "soil" in this parable represents a type of heart, or a pattern by which we respond to God. The first heart is what I call a closed heart; one that is not open to God's will and desires for any number of reasons. The second heart is the "rocky soil" heart, the one that receives God's move gladly, but does not have the depth to substain it when the going gets tough. The first heart is totally unreceptive to what God wants to do. The second one is very receptive, but they are only prepared for it if things are easy and if they can coast through things in God's anointing and power. When it comes time to stand firm, as per Ephesians 6:13-14, people with this type of heart get knocked over and taken out. This happens because they do not have a firm foundation in God and they do not have the spiritual depth to withstand the trials and temptations of life.
The third type of heart is a distracted heart. This is the one with the weeds. Weeds grow up and choke it out. This is the person that may embrace the things of the Lord. But they are quickly sucked into the things of the world. In fact that is the first thorn - worldliness. There are some things this person does not want to give up in the world. They don't want to release those things. This person comes to a place of believing that what other people think is more important than what God thinks. The person embraces the move of God and changes quickly. But then he (or she) gets back around old relationships and gets sucked back in to it.
I found this to be true back when I was a teen in my youth group. I used to get that mountain-top experience from the Lord. I would come home ready to change the world, only to be changed by the world. Do you know what I mean? You do okay. You experience the glory and power of the Lord, and who is there to snatch it away from you. That is where you have to cut off some relationships.
You see some of our young people are going to experience great measures of the glory of God and the world will try to suck it out of them. This is where the weeds come in and you have to cut off some friendships. Cut them loose. Give them up or you are going to get choked by them.
There is another thing that produces a distracted heart. We get a distracted heart if we do not have an eternal perspective. By that I mean that you are so focused on the things of this world that you do not have a heavenly perspective at all. You are so sucked into the things of this world here, and your priorities get messed up. You really don't know what is important, and what is not important.
Let me give you a question to ask yourself. Are the things that you are doing today going to matter l00 years from now? In l00 years, you are not going to be in this body on this earth, you are going to be with the Lord. 1 Cor 12:12-15 say, "Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw; each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire." Hopefully, all of us here have that relationship with the Lord, and you are going to be with Him. But are the things you involved with today going to pass through the fire into eternity? Do they have eternal significance, weight, and value?
Here, again, I just love the apostle Paul. Philippians 3:7,8 says, "But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ."
Sometimes we get so involved with the things of this world, that we miss out totally on God. A person will want to be president of every club they are involved in. They want their kids to be involved in every sport there is - basketball, soccer, football, etc. They want them to go to every camp. And not only that, people will decide not even really have a life because they are involved in so many different things. Many of you know that rat race. 100 years from now will it matter? In pursuit of the "American dream", will you have missed God's heavenly plan? One day it will not be there. It will be all burned up.
Now I'm not saying you have to give up everything. I am just saying you need to have a heavenly perspective on things. If you don't have that and when God shows up, you quickly get choked. You get squeezed to death with all that stuff of the world, and you can't move on with God because all your joy has now been robbed.
So if you are surrounded by the weeds, how can you begin to pull them so that your spiritual life and joy won't be choked out of you? You begin this by going back to God and asking Him for help. Invite Him to transform your thinking, to give you His perspective. Make Psalm 51:8-13 the prayer and cry of your heart on an ongoing basis:
Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities.Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit. Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You.
Another thing you can to is to take your datebooks or schedulers before the Lord and prayerfully review them with Him. Look at how and where you spend most of your time. Ask God to show you which or your activities are ones that He might want to rearrange a bit. Sometimes the problem is not that you don't care about what is important to God. Sometimes the problem is that a person gets so caught up and busy in their routines that they don't even realize that their are priorities are out of line. So when they begin to take them to God and review them with Him, they may become aware that they are out of order with Gods. That realization, in and of itself, may cause some of us to change our priorities.
Becoming Good Soil
We have spent the last four lessons talking about things that hinder a move of God. We started by looking at external resistance, at what Satan does to try and hinder it. He does not like it when we pray and intercede, because God's kingdom advances and he looses territory. So he strikes back and counter attacks. He is persistent and does not give up easily. So it is important for us to maintain in prayer the ground we take in prayer. We need to be persistent for advancing God's kingdom through intercession.
And yet, despite all of Satan's activities, the biggest hinderance to a move of God does not come from external attack. It comes from internal things that cause us to resist God or to hold back. We looked at the various soils from the the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. Then we examined three of these soils, or "hearts" or "mindsets" that oppose a move of God.
Now it is time to look at the "good soil". This is the one that we want to sign up for because is the receptive heart. It is the one that each of us desires to have. It is the soil that has cleared the rocks and cut down the weeds. It represents a man or woman who is open and receptive to God. It is not a hard heart, but an open, receptive heart. One might say, "I don't know if I want to open my heart that much. What if the devil comes in and plants some seeds?"
Well, this heart has a greater faith in God's ability to bring us the truth, than the devil's ability to bring us into deceit. Also, when you have that kind of open heart and weeds do get planted and grow quickly, you will be able to discern that and pull them out. It is good soil. Good soil is one that is teachable. The seeds can land and take root and grow. It is one whose rocks have been removed. They have addressed the rocks of woundedness, rocks of sin and fractured relationships. It is the soil that simply takes out the weeds whenever they face them. They have a sign on their heart that says - no weeds allowed! They carry with them a spiritual bottle of weed-be-gone. Any kinds of weeds that come up, they are taking out with a vengeance.
A person with a receptive heart has not fully arrived. They have not been perfected yet; they are still "in process." The Holy Spirit is still transforming them. But a person who is "good soil" walks close to God. They are in tune with what God is doing and they cooperate fully with God. They have resolved in their heart to obey God. They have removed the major hinderances from of their lives. The have taken on God's priorities and they have His perspective on things.
That is a good, receptive heart. I believe that everyone here, if they wanted to, could have good soil. There is not anyone that cannot have good soil. I do not like the percentages, though. Three out of four don't and cannot sustain it. The first one doesn't even receive it. They just simply ignore it and run from it. They don't have anything to sustain. The other two I believe receive the move of God and His Presence, but they cannot sustain it. But that good soil may take a little work. When it gets a little crusty, you might have to plow it up. You might have to work on some stones that you did not see. Have you guys ever planted and garden and removed the stones, and then you plant again and wonder - where did that rock come from? But you continually work at it. You continually cultivate it.
So let's talk a little bit about how to cultivate our soil into good soil. Farmers know how to do this, don't they? First, they clear out any rubbish on the top of the soil.. they haul it away. Then they take a plow and till the ground, exposing the rocks and softening the soil. If necessary, they will add some nutrients to the soil, usually in the form of fertilizer. They don't rush the soil, they wait until it is prepared and then the plant the seed. The Holy Spirit is like a farmer, patiently and faithfully working the field of our heart and preparing it. But there is one area where we are not at all like the plots of ground that farmers till. You see, the field has no choice. It must lay there and receive whatever attention the farmer gives it. The ground does not have a choice. It cannot get up and walk away and say, "This is too hard. I quit." And the ground does not get impatient and say, "This is taking too long.. hurry it up!" The ground is not capable of planting seeds in itself before the farmer decides it is time.
God is wanting to do some preparing of our soil, to make it into good soil that yields a big harvest. Let me go briefly over God's soil-conversion process, and what it might look like in our lives. Jeremiah 4:3 says "this is what the LORD says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem: 'Break up your unplowed ground and do not sow among thorns.'" In other words, we have to break break the things in our life that are not of God. We must not sow in thorns.. we can't hang on to the things that choke God's life out of us and expect to thrive in Him at the same time. The two are mutually exclusive. The very first step in God's soil conversion process is getting rid of the thorns and any other rubbish so that He can begin to plow. That means God will ask you to let go of those things that separate you from Him. We cannot begin to open ourselves to God's process while we are hanging onto things like sin, disobedience, bitterness, worldliness, carnal mindedness, etc. This stuff has to go! Some of you are asking, "Do you mean God might take some things away from me that I don't want to give up?" Absolutely. And what loving father would not take a sharp knife or a book of matches out of a toddler's hands even if the child wanted to play with it and even if they threw a tantrum! You see, if it is a dangerous thing where you are going to hurt yourself or hurt your relationship with God, He will take it away from you. What we have been talking about here is all part of clearing off the rubbish so that the farmer can begin to plow the soil.
The next step, of course, is the plowing itself. In Ezekiel 36:9, God says, "I am concerned for you and will look on you with favor; you will be plowed and sown." So we see the plowing is not a punishment, even if it feels like it at times. God does this because He cares greatly for us. He wants to prepare us so that He can sow His glory in us. This means He has to dig deep. He has to expose some of the rocks in our heart, bring His light to them and get them out of our lives. He does this to heal us, but He digs deep and that can be painful. Emotions and attitudes that we have hidden for a long time, sometimes even hidden from ourselves, come up to the surface so God can deal with them. We might not like what we see when God plows. We might be upset with ourselves, or we may feel angry with God for bringing them to the surface. Old hurts that we have repressed for a long time may come to the surface and cause us some discomfort, but God exposes them to heal them. If they come up, bring them to God and Him them heal you. That is what He wants to do. Plowing is like surgery; you have to cut the person open to get at the cancer so you can cut it away. And the cutting can hurt but it would be certain death to just leave the cancer in there. So the surgeon cuts at perfectly healthy skin to get to the bad part and remove it. Then he sows it up and lets the wound heal.
Or plowing can be like how gold is refined.. it is heated in a very hot fire until it melts. Then the impurities float to the surface and are cleared away. Has God been putting you through some fires and adversities lately? He may be doing that to get the impurities to the surface so He can remove them. Cooperate with God. The more you cooperate, the faster the plowing process will be.
Hosea 10:12 says, "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you." The plowing is not the end in and of itself.. it is a step in the process. The next step is the preparing the ground, the showering of love and life onto it. This is similar to when the farmer puts fertilizers in the soil.. he adds the things that are missing so that the soil can be rich and good soil. God is going to pour His love and His acceptance on you. He is going to bring you into activities that breathe life and build you up in Him; activities that nourish you. This will include God spending intimacy time with you. It will also include God having you become involved in activities that build you up and encourage you. You will be putting His word into you, doing worship, fellowshipping with other believers who love you. Plus God will meet you in those areas were you are deficient. If you grew up without love, He will surround you with His. If you have trouble trusting, He will demonstrate His trustfulness to you over and over. For some of you, God may want you to get involved in a recovery program, to have structured and efficient help in dealing with some issues. God will give you the opportunities and resources you need to be nourished in Him so that you can become good soil, lacking nothing.
What is your soil like today? How badly do you want to experience the continuous move of God? How badly do you want to sustain it? Are you willing to do whatever it takes to have good soil?