He who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Matthew 13:23). In that parable of the sower, the seed is the Word of God and the field is the heart of the one receiving the Word of God. Jesus also spoke of the parable, “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside” (Matthew 13:19). “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them” (Hebrews 10:16). The Word of God is Jesus Christ. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
It is Jesus Christ that is planted into our hearts. It is Jesus Christ within us that increases a hundredfold – sixty-fold – thirty-fold. John the Baptist said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Where do we say the new believer accepts Jesus? Do we not say, “Do you accept Jesus into your heart?” Jesus Christ is the Seed sown into the heart. But what of the field? In the parable that we are discussing, the field is the heart of a new believer; a new field needs the stones removed and the weeds plowed under. The sower is a believer that has matured into a seed baring plant, working the work of the Master.
When the Word of God is put into a good heart the seed grows into a mature plant. Those seeds are not stored into a barn but planted into new hearts. A seed in the barn does not increase but planted in a good heart it increases, “some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11) and those are the mature plants that sow into the hearts of mankind. The Word of God increases in every good heart and every good heart is given as a ministry gift by Jesus Christ. Every producing plant drops seed into the hearts of new believers.
Every believer, mature and new, are part of the body of Christ. Jesus said, “At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20). Jesus Christ (the Word) is the seed planted into our hearts (“I in you”) and the believer is part of the Christ (“you in Me”). That is how Jesus increases and we decrease. Every mature plant is part of the Christ and it is Jesus Christ (the Word) that is the seed dropped into the new heart. That is life producing life. That is like seed producing after its own kind.
“Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Luke 17:33). “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain” (John 12:24). It is when we die to our own self that we can be a plant that produces. It is when we know that our own way must yield to God’s way (Jesus Christ) and start living by that knowledge that we die to self. “He who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Matthew 13:23). Pass it on!
© 2006, 2017 Tim D. Coulter Sr.