To flourish as a Christian you need nutrients that feed the three dimensions of you; spirit, soul and body. (I Thess 5:23) We need soul food! (III John 2) Mark 4:3-9 is a great lesson in farming! We call it the parable of the sower, but really it is the parable of the soils. What kind of soil are you? Here are the four that are listed in Mark 4.
1. Ground with no soil, the seed is sown on the wayside – the seed never got to the soil, because there was no soil present! Fellowship with believers in your local church is vital, and hearing is the Word is how we grow in faith ….Don’t let the seed be devoured by fowl of air!
2. Stony Ground – The seed was received with joy, but when the seedling came up it died, because of no depth of earth and no root system.
3. Thorny Ground – The seed was choked out yielding no fruit because of the pressure of the cares and a life with too many distractions.
4. Good ground – Who we should be! Productive, exponentially reproducing, and abundant! Manifold return which brought forth fruit, 30, 60,100 fold.
To get the Word to produce in our lives, we have to be good ground. Good ground will receive the seed and produce fruit with amazing rates of return. So can we flourish on the earth? Yes! The food we need for the soil of our heart is the Word of God, the best soul food ever!