5 Days – An Introduction To Reading The BibleSample

 How to Maximise Your Potential    

Jesus often told stories to get people thinking. In this case, because the disciples didn’t seem to understand the story, he explained it to them in detail. He said that the seed was the word of God and that the different soils represented different people. This parable may apply to all of us at different times in our lives. 

There are four types of response to Jesus’ message: 

1. Hard-hearted (vv. 4, 15) 

Some seed ‘fell along the path’ and ‘the birds came and ate it up’ (v. 4). Jesus explained that this represents people who hear the word but ‘Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them’ (v. 15). This is when we hear the word of God, but it makes no deep impression. 

2. Faint-hearted (vv. 5–6, 16–17) 

The seed lands on rocky ground with little soil and therefore the plant does not take root properly (vv. 5–6). When something goes wrong in our life, our enthusiasm for God fades because there is no root. The root is the part of our lives that no one sees (for example, our prayer, Bible reading and giving), which gives strength to what appears above the surface. 

3. Half-hearted (vv. 7, 18–19) 

Here the thorns grow faster than the wheat and therefore choke it (v. 7). Jesus said these thorns are: 

• ‘The worries of this life.’ These could be job pressures, financial worries or concerns about one’s family or even ministry.
• ‘The deceitfulness of wealth,’ perhaps the desire for promotion at work, the grip of financial success, or the blinding goal of becoming rich. 
• ‘The desire for other things.’ These things could be good in themselves, but if they distract us from following Jesus, we will be unfruitful. 

4. Wholehearted (vv. 8, 20) 

The seed that falls on the good soil produces fruit thirty-fold, sixty-fold or even a hundred times what was sown (vv. 8, 20). If you hear God’s word and respond to it throughout your life, you will produce a massive crop, and your life will be very fruitful. 

For most of us, there have been times when we have not been wholehearted. What matters now is that you make the most of the rest of your life – that you maximise your potential for fruitfulness. You do this by constantly allowing the word of God to penetrate deeply into your life. 

For more, tap here  to check out the 30 Days devotional by Nicky Gumbel.