“Let our Gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.” James 1:21 (MSG)
During prayer, the Lord showed me the following: I’m standing in a large field of mature wheat. Jesus is holding light-colored seed in the palm of His hand that He wants to sow in the soil of my heart, but first He wants the seed to fall into my hand. I cup my hands together so the seed can fall into it, but as Jesus scatters the seed slowly in my hands, He makes me attend that I’m not realising what He is trying to show me, so I have to focus more intensely on the seed… and then I saw it… The seed of the Lord is the colour of wheat, but here and there is a pitch black seed that looks entirely different than the wheat-colored seed. I was startled when I saw the black seed as I realised it cannot be from the Lord… if it’s not from the Lord, where does it come from? I begged Jesus to give me insight about these black seed that makes me so uncomfortable… looking at it, a feeling of evil overwhelmed me.
Jesus explained to me that the black seed originate from Satan and he uses very subtle ways to sow these evil seed through the senses of man, in other words, he uses our physical senses like our eyes and ears to scatter his evil seed. We have to be very careful what enter our hearts through our senses – what do you listen to? What do you read and look at on television or internet? Satan uses this to easily sow millions of evil seed on a daily basis and the most dangerous seed of all are those of religion, tradition and false teachings. Just like I didn’t notice the evil seed falling into my hands, the worldly people are not aware that Satan is sowing evil seed in the soil of their hearts on a regular basis. Even if you are in an upright relationship with the Lord, we still have to be very careful of evil, black seed as the seed in our hearts, determine the state of our heart. Some teachings may seem and sound divine and quite innocent, yet most of it are black seed that fall into our heartsoil where it will germinate, grow and bear fruit… Good seed will bear good fruit and evil seed will bear evil fruit. I shudder when I think about trees with rotten fruit, for the words of Jesus echo in my ears:
“And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” Matthew 3:10
When we come to sincere repentance and we truly sacrifice our hearts and lives to the Lord, a process takes place within us which we usually are not even aware of. It is not an overnight-process, but a journey where the Lord prepares the soil of our hearts so that He can sow immortal seed in our hearts that must grow to bear Godly fruit that will glorify Him. But before the Lord can sow His seed in our hearts, the soil has to be prepared as it has to be weed-free as well as the correct texture.
If you read Matthew 13:1-9, you will clearly see why it is so important that our hearts need to be cleansed. The seed of the Lord cannot grow in shallow soil, neither on rock, nor between weeds. Seed germinate only in well-prepared soil and therefore our hearts need cleansing from all the weeds before the Godly seed will grow, flower and bear fruit in our heart. Please read Matthew 13: 10-17 (I quote parts from The Message)
Why tell stories?
“The disciples came up and asked, ‘Why do you tell stories?’ He replied, ‘You have been given insight into God’s kingdom. You know how it works. Not everybody has this gift, this insight; it hasn’t been given to them. Whenever someone has a READY HEART for this, the insights and understandings flow freely. But if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they’s blue in the face and not get it. I don’t want Isaiah’s forecast repeated all over again: Your ears are open but you don’t hear a thing. Your eyes are awake but you do not see a thing ’…” Matthew 13: 10-15 (MSG)
We have to realise how important it is to kneel before the Lord and beg from Him a “ready heart”; but therefor we have to place our entire life and heart in the hands of the Almighty.
“Create in me a clean heart, o God, and renew a right and steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10 (Amplified)
If the evil black seed has already germinated in your heart to bear rotten fruit, there is only one way to notice these iniquities and that is through the Light of the Word. Only the Word can shine a light on the weeds in our hearts so that we can “see” and confess it to the Lord. When we make the choice to completely turn our backs on it, the Lord will forgive us and remove the specific weed from our hearts. 1 Corinthians 3: 9 says we are the field of God:
“You are God’s garden and vineyard and field under cultivation” 1 Corinthians 3: 9 (AMP)
Seed from Satan needs darkness to grow and bear fruit, it cannot grow in the light of the Lord and therefore the evil seed will perish when we spend much time in the Word and in the presence of the Lord. But if we neglect our relationship with the Lord and we do not spend time in His Light, the evil seed will be able to grow and make your heart a paradise of weeds.
The Lord had much work in my heart-soil as it was overgrown with weed. It took a long time to get rid of all the weeds, but just as He worked, plowed and cleansed my heart (the process never stops), He longs to cleanse each of His children’s hearts so that He can sow His light-colored seed – the seed of Truth. The Lord will always reveal the Truth to His children so that they can expose the evil which lies within the black seed. This evil in the seed is false teachings and every “Christian” has a heart that is overgrown with evil weed. The fact that you attend church services, call yourself a Christian, confess with the mouth that you believe in God, doesn’t guarantee you of a heart that is clean… those who believe this lie, are usually those whose hearts are so overgrown with evil weed that they do not have spiritual eyes and ears to distinguish between truth and lies… it is the weed that make them blind and deaf… and that is why I do not waste my time with arguments, for those who love quarrelling, is those who oppose the truth… they see themselves as the holy, righteous ones but in reality they have no Godly insight. They do not receive the seed of truth from the Lord because they reckon they are clean and do not need any cleansing.
In my search for the Lord, Satan sowed many evil seed in my heart through my senses, but when I fully surrendered to the Lord and His ways, He shone His Light on the filthy soil of my heart and with time I started noticing the lies that I believed. I noticed each lie as the Lord revealed to me His Truth and as I resisted the lies and spent more time in the presence of the Lord, the weeds died (they cannot grow in the Light of the Lord). Today I know it was the will of God that Satan sowed evil seed in my heart in the form of false teachings. The Lord never left me and waited until the perfect time before He started to expose these evil that grew in my heart… and that is why I will expose these lies until the day the Lord takes me from the earth.
“Light-seeds are planted in the souls of God’s people, Joy-seeds are planted in good heart-soil.” Psalm 97:11 (MSG)
What does the soil of your heart look like? Don’t try to figure it out by yourself; instead, take time to be still before the Lord so that He can reveal to you what the state of your heart-soil is.
Sonneblomsaadjies 