Check out this radio interview with apostle Willie Coates Jr.  This is what happens when apostles and prophets get together.  They discuss particularly "catching the song of the Lord", the minstral anointing, worship and creativitiy along with intercession and healing.  Very informative interview to listen to you if you have time. I promise you will be blessed by it!

Luke 8:6 "Other seed fell on rock, and when it came up it withered because it had no moisture."

Luke 8:13 "Those on the rock are the ones who received the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root.  They believe for a while, but in a time of testing they fall away." 

Have you ever heard the saying "no fruit, no root?" The seed must be planted in the right environment in order for it to first take root, then flourish and eventually bear fruit. We can see from other scriptures that Jesus is obviously interested in fruit. He cursed a fig tree out of season for not doing so! Why is there no fruit? Simply because there is no root. The root is the part of the plant that no one sees. During my environmental science class that I took last summer I found out what it meant to have a deep root. We were given the assignment of plucking out of the ground nasty mustard weed that would decorate itself around Judson campus. This weed is foreign to our midwest soil and particularly damaging to the local oak trees. Its a small plant, but in order to kill it you must pluck it up from its root. Some of the weeds were easy to tear out because they were babies and had no roots formed. Others, well lets just say they had been there a while. They were hard to pull out because they had really large root systems. Those on the rock are the ones that receive the word of God with joy, but don't stand the test of time. And time will test you. Being a Christian is not for the swift, but for those who endure. When all else fails in your life, when you don't see the results you would like to see will you still believe? Will you still walk by faith and not by sight? The root is buried deep underground. Your success in life will largely determine how strong your roots are. You need room to grow, you need a soil thats rich and you need moisture of the Holy Spirit to saturate your spirit man. Don't be tricked. The rocky soil is a mixture of dirt and rocks. It may be received with joy, but get those rocks out before the time of testing comes and the plant withers up.

The Path

Luke 8.18 "...and some seed fell on the path, and were trampled on, and the wild birds came to devour it"

Continuing in our look at the parable of the soils we turn our attention to the first condition of the soil, hard ground. We have previously looked at the characters in place: the farmer, the seed and the birds.  Again take note that the focus of the parable is the soils.  Jesus later goes on to explain, in private, to his disciples that the types of soils are the various conditions of men's hearts.  Note the seed is constant, but the condition of the heart is what changes and what needs to change.  The first attempt to plant the seed falls upon a path.  The path is symbolic of the unplowed ground of the heart of mankind.  People's hearts have to be plowed by the Holy Spirit before they can properly even begin to recieve the Word of God in to their hearts.  He is the one who convicts the world of sin, righteousness and judgement. John 16:8. Often times peoples hearts have been trampled on through other means which has made that ground hard to penetrate.  They have been walked on, beat up, filled with broken promises and constatly bruised.  This is a heart that needs extra attention and prayer. For ONLY PRAYER can break up this ground in the heart of an unbeliever. Jesus gives us the result of the farmer trying to sow seed on this ground.  It gets trampled.  This is how you will know if someone is ready to recieve Christ or not.  Does the words you say to them get trampled on or do they get recieved?  Be careful who you invest in.  They may not be able or ready to recieve the Word of God into thier hearts.  In some cases, this can do more damage than good.  We cannot see the hearts of men, only God knows people's hearts, but we must be sensitive to the Holy Spirit to know when our words are being recieved or if they are just bouncing right off the ground.  Soon enough the birds will begin to fly up over head to devour the seed that has been sown.

Luke 8: 4-15

This parable amazes me every time I read it. Lets just give a short breakdown of the parable:Characters: Farmer, Birds of the air, Seed. Types of soils: Path, Rocky, Thorns, Fertile.

First of all, what blows me away is that Jesus PURPOSELY hid the meaning of the parable from large groups of people. Why would he do that you might ask?  Jesus knew that revelation given to children would be dangerous. Only those who were hungry enough to pull from the throne of heaven would qualify to get understanding and wisdom of kingdom principles.  This goes to show you that God not only cares about the end result, but also about the process.  He wants to see how desperate you are. How hungry are you to not only know Him, but know his WAYS. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, it is the glory of kings to search it out.  Secondly, he TELLS the small group of disciples the meaning in plain english.  (The secrets of the kingdom of God are not revealed to just anyone.)  Seeing that this is such a large parable, I'm going to spend the next few days touching on in detail each aspect of the parable beginning with the seed and then ending with the fertile soil. Stay tuned and I hope you get something out of these short lessons.

"Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts up her voice in the square" Proverbs 1:20

Wisdom is knowledge applied. Sometimes we think a person is wise because of their profound words, however true wisdom is more than words. True wisdom actually has nothing to do with words at all.  Wisdom is acquiring the knowledge of a thing and then having the practical ability to be able to carry it out.  For example, its one thing to have a lot of knowledge about God.  Its another thing to actually know God himself.  Jesus had a major problem with these types of people. Religion is never able to produce a true demonstration of the kingdom of God.  It has the appearance of wisdom, but is void of any real practical application.  It puts rules on people, but doesn't lift a finger to remove the burden. Another thing sometimes we mistake wisdom for is fear.  Fear often masquerades itself as "wisdom".  We use "wisdom" as an excuse for our lack of faith or inability to be able to practically produce the fruit from the tree of God's wisdom. Thats why its so important to have encounters with God.  If we lack experiences with God in our church meetings or even in our individual relationships with God then we are in danger of deception.  "Virtual church" as one person put it.  Get wisdom, (get experience) above all things get understanding.