Thought for Today: “A Hardened Heart”

In Jesus’s Parable of the Soils, the first condition of the heart He addressed is a heart that is hard, that is, it is a heart that is hardened to God’s word due to a lack of preparedness to receive it.

“The seeds that fell on the footpath represent those who hear the message, only to have the devil come and take it away from their hearts and prevent them from believing and being saved.” (Luke 8:12 LB)

Jesus used unwelcoming and unproductive soil to describe those who are unprepared to receive God’s word. Like the seeds that fall on the hardened path, God’s message has no place to implant itself with a person’s heart that has grown cold and hard.

In my back yard, which I had to replace with fake grass and rock, there were just certain places that no matter what I’d do, the grass just wouldn’t grow. It was tilled and fertilized but the seed just wouldn’t take root, and it wouldn’t be long before a bevy of birds, would show up for a free meal.

Well, that’s that happens to a heart that is unprepared to receive God’s word. It just won’t take root, and the enemy of our souls, Satan, won’t let it sit long enough to give it a chance to sink in and be saved.