Luke 8:4-15 Seeds of Heaven

Format for Your Devotions

Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.

Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.

Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.

Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.

Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?

Step 5: Apply this to your own life.

Step 6: Prayer

My Example Devotion: August 1, 2018 Luke 8:4-15

Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.

And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable, “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock, and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away. And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.

(Understanding the Text / Revelation of God) This parable is told to a great crowd of people who gathered round Jesus from various towns.  They came to listen to Him speak and see the miracles, but evidently they did not understand the parables any more than the disciples.  What did they think when Jesus told a story and then just said if you have ears, listen?  They may have asked each other about the meaning, but without context, it would be difficult to know for sure.  Why does God do that so much?  He tells a prophet or the rest of us something that will have great significance later when there is context, but which is mystifying to the person who received the information.  When it’s prophecy, I see that the purpose is to inspire belief in later generations and to have the message already in place when it is time, but why does the person receiving the message have to be in the dark?  Why did Jesus want people to not understand what they saw and heard?  That’s what His answer to the disciples implied.  I’ve never understood that aspect of Jesus’ parables.  Guzik’s commentary says “In the Bible, a mystery isn’t something you can’t figure out. It is something that you would never know unless God revealed it to you. In the Biblical sense of the idea, you may know exactly what a mystery is, yet it is still a mystery, because you would not have known unless God revealed it. . . .  By quoting this passage from Isa_6:9, Jesus explained that He offered His hearers the opportunity to dig deep and find the truth, or to turn a blind eye to an interesting story. This would avoid a greater condemnation for having rejected a clearly understood truth.”  He also quotes another commentator saying “So, that their guilt may not accumulate, the Lord no longer addresses them directly in explicit teachings during the period immediately preceding His crucifixion, but in parables.” (Geldenhuys)”  I’m not sure if I agree with this idea, but it is one that I had not considered before.  I’ll have to think about it some more.

All of Jesus’ parables have one theme:  the kingdom of God growing inside of us.  It is significant that the seed is the word of God.  In those days, it would have been Jesus’ own words coming out of His mouth, but nowadays and before that, the word of God was the scriptures.  Jesus’ point is that the kingdom of heaven grows in us by hearing the word of God.  Simply focusing on the messages given to me by God can make His kingdom grow in my heart.  It may seem that God’s word lands on deaf ears, but this parable implies that the word went into their ears and into their hearts.  However, the people let it be snatched out of their hearts by the devil’s whispers.  They have allowed their own hearts to become hardened so that spiritual messages can find no place to root in them.  Their stony hearts repel such messages away from them and any residual message that remains is quickly rejected.  The next group has some softness in their hearts for God’s message to get a foothold, but they are mostly hardened, so the little bit of good soil that they have is not enough to let the word of God grow in them.  There would be hope for them if they would just let the word soften them rather than holding onto their calloused cynicism and judgmental hardness.  Their understanding of the scriptures is limited by their hardness.  They have only a shallow understanding and do not really care about Jesus, so they stop growing and wither away.  The third group actually grows in Christ.  They have roots and softened hearts.  They are sincerely following Jesus, but they allow the world to become more important than Jesus in their lives.  They pursue the world of money and worldly pleasures rather than turning their back on the love of these things.  They do not trust Jesus, so their fears become more powerful than their faith.  They let their insecurities and worries come between them and their Savior.  As a result, they do not bear the fruit of the Spirit.  I was one of these before.  The final group not only have good soil, but Jesus said that they hold fast to the word with a soft heart that is open to growth and honesty in facing the changes in their lives.  The fruit of the Spirit comes to them, but not immediately.  Jesus said that the fruit comes with patience.  It takes time to mature and bear fruit, but it will happen as long as we hold tight to Jesus and His teaching, we allow Him to transform us rather than hardening ourselves to His messages, we turn away from any worldly thing that interferes with our growth as part of the kingdom of heaven, we trust Jesus to take care of us, and we wait patiently for Jesus’ word to grow in us.  We are not the seed.  We are the soil that the word grows in and matures in.

The Sower is wasteful in that He throws His seed everywhere instead of focusing it on good soil.  This demonstrates God’s attitude toward sinners.  None of us should have received His blessings once we rejected Him, but He does not withhold anything good from us simply because He doesn’t want to waste resources.  He poured Himself out unto death for those who reject Him as much as for those who receive Him.  None of us are what you might call good soil.  We are all variations on the bad situations.  However, the Spirit works with us to make any who are willing into the good soil.  God does not count His efforts wasted even when they fall on deaf ears and blind eyes.  He just patiently keeps working and hoping and loving us.

Guzik’s commentary applies this parable to both the initial hearing of God’s message and later light that comes from God.  “These four categories apply to those who hear the gospel of salvation, but they also apply to those who are already saved who continually hear the word of God. How do you hear it?

• Do you let Satan take it right away?
• Do you take it but then immediately ignore it?
• Do you allow the cares of this world to make your hearing of the word of no effect?
• Do you keep the word and see it bear fruit in your life?”

(Application / Prayer) My application for myself is that I must trust Jesus and not let myself become hardened towards God or my fellow man.  I must always prioritize God above anything in this world.  When I start to worry, I need to give those worries to God and trust Him to take care of them.  I must not become impatient and give up, but I must simply keep feeding on God’s word and trusting Him.  The rest happens naturally if I let it. I am naturally stony ground with lots of weeds. Take my fears and worries and frustrations and replace them with good ground where the seed of Your words will grow and develop and bear fruit. Teach me to be a mature Christian.