And other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirtyfold and sixtyfold and a hundredfold. – Mark 4:8 In this parable that Jesus tells by the lakeside, he gives his listeners four options:
- Be devoured by Satan’s lies when they hear the good news;
- Allow hardship and life discourage you from believing the good news;
- Become distracted by things that are not such good news that the good news is obscured; and
- Live a life that is 30x, 60x and 100x greater than you ever imagined the good news being for your life.
Quite honestly, if you do not pick number four, I won’t consider you the brightest bulb in the bunch, I might not even call you the dimmest bulb in the bunch, we’ll just say you need to be taken out of the bunch for your own sake. As much as we want to choose option number four, we all know, deep down inside, that none of us actually live the life described by option number four. It’s an impossible reality that we want to aspire toward, but never expect to live. The closer reality is that we probably hover between all four options fluidly at any point in our lives (more likely in any eight hour span of our waking day) and that’s just the reality of it– the good news in our lives can be suffocatingly lifeless or an inspirationally unfathomable reality (just imagine going from losing your job in a corporate layoff to winning the Mega millions jackpot on the same day). But, what if I told you that option four can be our every day? Would you believe that Jesus allows us to be the “good soil” despite everything in our lives that screams otherwise? It’s hard to believe, I know; however, it is within our realm of possibility to live beyond what we ever imagined being a Christ follower would be. Here’s how: being “good soil” just means that we have life within us. Because there is life within us, just as “soil” has nutrients and worms and bugs and fertilizers that give life to plants, we also have “life”, who is the Holy Spirit. As a result of having life within us, we are useful. You see being “good soil” means that you are “useful,” or rather, have the capacity to be “used.” As a result of having life within us (the Holy Spirit) and being of the capacity to produce “fruit,” the natural conclusion must be that depending on the season of life we are in (hard times or good times) we will always be in production of a thirty, sixty or a hundredfold type of life. Being the “good soil” has nothing to do with your current predicament. Nor does it have anything to do with any type or sort of skill-set. To be “good soil” all we need is God within us (1 Cor 3:16) and the willingness to be used by God (Romans 6:13). When we do this, we will yield a lifetime thirty, sixty or a hundredfold greater than we ever imagined in Christ. Be the “good soil” today.
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