"Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.
But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience."
Luke 8:11-15
This is the interpretation of the Parable of the Sower. :) In it, the sower plants his seed, and some of it falls by the way side and gets eaten by birds, some falls on a rock and withers, some falls among thorns and it gets choked, and some falls on good ground and produces a ton of fruit ("an hundredfold" seems like a ton to me at least).
In this parable instead of being the plants, we represent the ground. As in Alma 32:28, the "seed may be planted in [our hearts]" and if we don't "cast it out by [our] unbelief" then it will grow.
The parable explains some of the ways that we can mess it up. We can let the birds, representing the devil, deceive us because we stop listening to God and start listening to him, and we harden "our hearts against the word, insomuch that it [is] not found in us" (Alma 12:13).
We can listen to the word and accept it, but then when a temptation or something shiny comes along, we run off after that instead, and we neglect the seed, allowing it to wither (see Alma 32:28).
We can allow our lives to get too busy and distracted, which is basically not weeding our garden, and we allow all of those distractions to choke out what really matters.
And then of course we can take care of the seed "with great diligence, and with patience" (Alma 32:41), and pluck the fruit of the tree of life... because that is what the word of God always leads to. :)
Today, let's beware of all we ways that we can mess things up, and work to avoid these pitfalls that God has warned us about. Let's plant his word in our hearts and feed the plant regularly so that one day "it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life" (Alma 32:41).
Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.
But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience."
Luke 8:11-15
This is the interpretation of the Parable of the Sower. :) In it, the sower plants his seed, and some of it falls by the way side and gets eaten by birds, some falls on a rock and withers, some falls among thorns and it gets choked, and some falls on good ground and produces a ton of fruit ("an hundredfold" seems like a ton to me at least).
In this parable instead of being the plants, we represent the ground. As in Alma 32:28, the "seed may be planted in [our hearts]" and if we don't "cast it out by [our] unbelief" then it will grow.
The parable explains some of the ways that we can mess it up. We can let the birds, representing the devil, deceive us because we stop listening to God and start listening to him, and we harden "our hearts against the word, insomuch that it [is] not found in us" (Alma 12:13).
We can listen to the word and accept it, but then when a temptation or something shiny comes along, we run off after that instead, and we neglect the seed, allowing it to wither (see Alma 32:28).
We can allow our lives to get too busy and distracted, which is basically not weeding our garden, and we allow all of those distractions to choke out what really matters.
And then of course we can take care of the seed "with great diligence, and with patience" (Alma 32:41), and pluck the fruit of the tree of life... because that is what the word of God always leads to. :)
Today, let's beware of all we ways that we can mess things up, and work to avoid these pitfalls that God has warned us about. Let's plant his word in our hearts and feed the plant regularly so that one day "it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life" (Alma 32:41).
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