How Does Your Garden Grow?

by Joe Slater

I presume you have your garden in by now. If you’re like me, you’re looking forward to harvesting those nutritious veggies! Somehow, the store-bought variety doesn’t measure up. If you planted okra, what do you expect to harvest? It’s a weird question, but you probably know already what I’m driving at. Okra seed won’t produce sweet corn or cabbage, no matter how much you desire them. God designed living things to reproduce after their own kind (Genesis 1:11-25).

That biological principle applies to spiritual concerns, too. God’s word is spiritual seed (Luke 8:11). When it is planted into good soil (honest hearts), it produces a harvest. In Acts 2, Peter planted that seed into the hearts of a multitude of people. Many believed and asked what they should do (Acts 2:37). Peter told them to repent and be immersed in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38). Some 3000 souls did just that, becoming disciples of Jesus. God gave the name “Christian” to such disciples (Acts 11:26).

When that same gospel seed is planted into honest hearts today, what harvest should we expect? It brought forth Christians about 2000 years ago. Would it produce something different today? No, because seed still brings forth fruit after its kind! The confusion in the religious world isn’t the result of the pure seed being sown. Rather, it exists because some other “seed” has been planted (traditions of men, creeds, opinions, dogmas). Those things have produced all manner of division, confusion, and hostility.

God’s word needs no improvement (as if there were such a thing)! Our need is not to add to it, take from it, or modify it in any way, but simply to believe it, obey it, and live by it. May God help us to do just that.