The power of Seed

By Jacob Stanley

Today we'll explore the Parable of the Sower, which Jesus tells in the book of Luke.

While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, He told them this parable: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. And as he was sowing, some seed fell along the path, where it was trampled, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the seedlings withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the seedlings. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it sprang up and produced a crop — a hundredfold." As Jesus said this, He called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."— Luke 8:4–8

What Is Seed?

God communicates his word to us in different ways, but it always starts as seed.

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.— 1 Peter 1:23

Seed, in this parable, is the Word of God. But we have to understand that the Word of God isn't dead words on a page — it's living and active, a spiritual word that actually impacts you, speaks to you, transforms you, changes you.

That's what gives the 'word-seed' potential: it can grow and manifest and genuinely become the thing it promises.

The Spirit gives life, while the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.— John 6:63

The flesh counts for nothing. Our opinions, the politics we get caught up in, the stuff we fuss over and worry about — it's all flesh, and it's going to blow away and evaporate in time.

What's eternal is the Word of God. It's spirit and it's life. You breathe it in and it does something inside you — it gives you energy, gives you revelation, gives life to your thoughts, your heart, your whole world.

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.— Hebrews 4:12–13

Living & Active! That's what makes the Word of God so different from every other word spoken over us — it's alive, and it's always doing something. When you declare it, believe it, receive it, it's active.

It cuts through the noise, the debate, the endless opinions, and it makes a final judgment. That is truth. It draws a line. There's no noise left once the Word of God has spoken — it brings about silence. It's a finishing statement.

"Let these false prophets tell their dreams, but let my true messengers faithfully proclaim my every word. There is a difference between straw and grain! Does not my word burn like fire?" says the LORD. "Is it not like a mighty hammer that smashes a rock to pieces?"— Jeremiah 23:28–29

The Word of God burns! It burns up the chaff, the junk in our thoughts and heart. The more of the Word you carry in your heart, the less room there is for the junk, because it's slowly being burned up.

The Word of God is a hammer! The more of the Word of God you have inside you, the less chance there is of rocky ground taking hold in the first place — it smashes it up like a hammer and breaks it apart. All of us have rocky ground somewhere. But the Word of God is what breaks it up.

How Do You Hear the Word?

In this parable - God is a farmer, sowing seed.

God is sowing his word into every one of us, no matter where we are, and he scatters it because he's not rejecting anyone. You might be far away from him and it still comes to you. You might have turned your back on him and it lands there anyway. He's so full of grace and compassion that his word won't stop coming until you appear before him. He will never give up sending His Word to you.

So how does His Word actually reach you? In my experience, it tends to come one of a few ways:

• Sometimes His Word is a feeling of conviction — a nudge on your conscience, a "you shouldn't say this" or "you should stand up right now." That's the Holy Spirit speaking to your heart, put there to steer you and turn you. When he convicts you, it's because he cares about you.
  

• Sometimes His Word is a revelation — you're in prayer or worship, or just out for a walk, and something hits you. A revelation is different from a realisation. Realisations are helpful, but they don't necessarily come from the Spirit of God. A revelation does — it's a gift from him, something life-changing, heart-changing, mind-changing, and it stays with you.
  

• Sometimes His Word is a Bible verse that jumps off the page — you're reading, and something stands out, resonates, feels highlighted to your heart.

• Sometimes His Word comes as a prophetic word — someone says, "I've been praying for you, and I feel like the Lord is saying this."

  
  

• And sometimes His Word comes in a dream — not just your subconscious processing the day, but an actual dream from God. You know when it happens. It disturbs you, wakes you up & stays with you.
  

The real question isn't whether God is speaking to you. It's what you're going to do when he does.

So What Will You Do With the Seed?

The Path

The devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.— Luke 8:12

The pathway is common ground — a transport route, trampled by everyone. It's a picture of treating the Word of God without much respect, of not taking it seriously.

Not everybody treats the seed with honour, and not everybody sees it as precious.

When God speaks to you, the most important thing you can do is record it. Write it down.

Don't just let it slip past, and don't take it for granted — what you've just received is precious.

If it happens mid-service, grab whatever's on hand and write it down, then stick it in your Bible. If you can't spell, get your phone out and record yourself describing what happened. If you've had a dream, find your phone the moment you wake up and record it before it fades.

Jesus says elsewhere not to throw your pearls before swine, because they'll trample them — and I think the same principle applies here. We have to treat the seed as precious.

These things God gives you don't come around often. A God-dream, a God-promise, whatever form it takes — it's precious, and that means it isn't for sharing with just anyone, because not everybody honours the seed the way they should. Find someone who honours the Word of God, who honours revelation and prophetic words, who treats them with care and sees their potential and power. Choose carefully who you let in on this.

Rocky Soil

The rocky ground are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.— Luke 8:13

There are a few places in the Old Testament where the prophets talk about hardened ground, about our hearts being hard before the Lord. Maybe you're disappointed. Maybe you're frustrated. Maybe you had a promise that didn't come about, and something hardened inside you as a result. God keeps trying to drop new words in but we don't fully receive them, because the ground of our heart has gone hard.

If that resonates, it might be time to turn the soil of your heart. That's a process, a difficult part of gardening — turning hard soil. But sometimes in the journey of faith you just have to make a choice: I'm going to soften my heart to God again. I still don't have an answer for what happened, but I'm going to choose to be soft toward the Word of God even without one. It's okay to have areas you haven't figured out — you most likely have unanswered questions, things you don't understand. But there are two types of people: those whose questions harden them, and those who have unanswered questions, yet choose to turn the soil and become soft again. Be the second person.

Thorns

As they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures.— Luke 8:14

In this section this soil is actually good — soft, receptive — but it's crowded with thorns and other plants. It's the soil of a genuinely open-hearted person. Someone who, over the years has received the things of God, experienced miracles, provision, breakthrough. But this person has stayed open to everything else too - worldly desires, dreams and thinking. They let it all grow in their hearts together.

Here's what tends to happen to a lot of Christians, especially after many years in the faith. You receive something from the Lord — say, a word that he's your provider. You believe it wholeheartedly and plant it in your soil, and over time it grows. You run out of money one day and he answers your prayer. It happens again, and again, and that plant grows bigger and stronger in the garden of your heart, until you can look down into your own heart in a tight spot and see the testimony sitting there: God is my provider, he's provided for me before.

But somewhere along the way, other things get planted alongside it. A new stage of life brings new needs — enough to retire on, enough for the kids' music lessons — and the worry about those things starts to grow too, right next to the testimony.

Left unchecked, it eventually shades over the revelation that was already there, until it's so dominant that when you look down into your heart in a crisis, all you see is the new problem. The old testimony is buried under it.

One of the most helpful things I've found for dealing with this — for guarding the garden and pulling the weeds — is fellowship. All of us have weeds growing alongside the good plants. You've got things in your heart that are a gift to others, bearing fruit for the people around you. But the harder gift is opening your heart to people who love God and giving them permission to look closely at your garden. They'll see weeds you can't see yourself, and if you've given them permission, they might have the courage to actually say something. You have to give people that permission — they're not going to volunteer it uninvited, because most of us are afraid of getting our heads bitten off.

Choose someone. Ask them plainly: what do you see in my life that I'm not seeing? Once someone can point at a weed and name it, you can take it to the Lord in prayer. Some weeds are massive, some you just have to hack away at, come back to, hack at again. It won't necessarily happen overnight. But once that weed's out of the way, the right things in your heart get room to grow again.

Good Soil

But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.— Luke 8:15

Three things mark the good soil:

• The first is that you hear it. The seed is going to come to you — the question is what you do with it. Ignore it, turn your back, shrug it off? Or actually hear it.

• The second is that you retain it. Hold it, treat it as precious. Keep it the way you'd keep something small and fragile — safe enough to grow.
  

• The third is that you persevere with it. Storms come to everybody — disappointment, confusion, seasons of delay or despair. If you're going through them alone, without fellowship, you won't have roots, and the storm will wash the seed ( His promise, calling, truth) right out of your heart.
  

Fellowship is what keeps you standing in the storm. None of us are always strong enough on our own; we need one another. So put your roots down into fellowship. If you're not part of a home group, get into one. If you're not making a habit of coffee or a catch-up with a Jesus-loving friend, be intentional about starting. Put yourself out there and ask for it. We all need this.

The difference between the path, the rocky ground, the thorns, and the good soil was never about the seed itself — the seed is the same every time, God's word, freely scattered over all of us. The difference is the condition of the ground it lands on. So take stock of your own soil. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you where it needs turning, and don't try to do that part alone.