In Matthew 13 Jesus tells the parable of the Sower. He described the make-up of a field and how the seed is scattered and received into the soil. God is always creating. It is His nature. Consider the seed when planted in the right environment. It has tremendous potential, for example, within the seed of an apple is the eventual potential for an orchard!….but the seed will never reach it’s full potential if it is not nurtured in the right environment.

Matt. 13:8 Jesus referred to the yield of fruit produced from seed grown in good ground, the right environment….”…some 100fold, some 60fold and some 30fold.” If we are producing a crop 30fold, what is the other 70% made up of? Stones! Seed cannot reach it’s full potential of yield on stony ground, which represents my hard heart.

Verse 23, “But he that received seed into good ground is he that hears the word, AND UNDERSTANDS IT, which also bears fruit…”

The “good ground” Jesus spoke of here is a humble and contrite heart, a teachable spirit that will hear the word of God, understand it and bear fruit for His glory. Therefore, if I have a lack of understanding, I must take responsibility for having a hard heart. Somewhere I have (maybe unknowingly) fallen out with God and people over a circumstance and judged, producing my hard heart and lack of understanding:

verses 13 – 15 “…because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, NEITHER DO THEY UNDERSTAND. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says, By hearing ye shall hear, and not understand, and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive. For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart and be converted and I should heal them.”

When I hit a situation I do not understand, my hard heart can be at the root of it. In Ephesians 4:32 Paul encourages us, “Be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.” When my heart is hard I cannot understand and I have no capacity to understand a revelation. I need to beseech the Lord to show me the root of my hard heartedness which affects my ability to understand and perceive. My foolish heart has become darkened, Romans 1:21.

When my heart is hard I begin to trust in wrong things, other than the Lord. My heart condition is related to the fruit in my life. We are to be “doers” of the word and not just “hearers.”

The Divine Gardener comes to inspect the fruit of His vineyard. Let us allow the Holy Spirit of God to show us the stones of unforgiveness and judgement that have produced misunderstanding and inhibited the growth of the precious fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We can humbly ask for forgiveness and we discover an open heaven to us. Divinity then gloves humanity…Father, Son and Holy Ghost have a great affinity, a divine attraction to humility. They cannot resist it! They rejoice in it, and all heaven with them as it is the “good soil” that the incorruptible seed can produce 100fold….a harvest for the glory of God!