Your Fruit Are Showing

In Mark 4, Jesus starts speaking and teaching in parables. A parable is a short story that teaches a truth. The first parable he teaches the crowds is about a sower who sows seed, and the seed falls on different types of soil. Depending on the soil, the seed either grows and produces fruit, or it dies before any fruit is produced.

Later on, Jesus tells a group of his closest followers that the seed in the story is God’s Word. The seed is truth. Some people are going to hear the truth about God, and that seed is going to grow and we’ll see the fruit of that seed in their life. Others are going to hear the truth and that seed is going to die. They’ll never believe it.

One of the soils represents talks about a person who just outright rejects God’s Word. Another soil receives it well at first, but then rejects it soon after. But another type of soil is much more concerning. It’s the third kind of soil. Here’s what Jesus says about it in verse 7: “Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it didn’t produce fruit.” What’s concerning about this kind of person is that they don’t outright reject God’s truth. They don’t walk away like the first two soils. Instead, they stick around and “hang out” around God’s Word. They come to church on Sunday, they read their Bibles, and they attend Bible studies. But here’s what Jesus says about this kind of soil in verse 18:  “these are the ones who hear the word, but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” Even though they stick around God’s Word, they never embrace it with their whole heart, so they never show any fruit of actually believing God’s Word.

This is a distracted heart. They never actually reject God’s Word, they could even stick around it for a long time, but all the other desires of the world slowly choke God’s word in their lives. The stuff of the world is just more attractive, more enticing, and they give their heart to it more than to God.

This happens when our hearts are more interested in things like a safe retirement, or healthy children, or good jobs, a good sex life, money, good marriages, or success at work. We start desiring those things more than we desire Jesus. Those things will grow bigger and bigger in our lives, and then eventually they choke out God’s Word. They become more important to us than following Jesus. And so, because our hearts are filled with chasing those things, we’ll never have the fruit, or the characteristics, that God says exist in the life of a person who follows Him.

We see those fruit in Galatians 5: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Those are the fruit, the characteristics, that are going to be clearly seen in the life of a person who is attached to Jesus. They’re going to be growing. But someone with a distracted heart won’t grow in these things. They’ll just stay stagnant.

Are you growing in these characteristics? Maybe try to show someone close to you this list, someone that you trust to be honest with you, and ask them if they’ve seen you grow in any of these areas. If not, it may be that you have a distracted heart.

Another way that we can figure out if we have a distracted heart is to answer a few questions honestly:

How do you spend your free time?

What do you think about when you don’t have to think about anything else?

When you’re with your closest friends, what do you talk about?

However you answer those questions, those are probably the things that you’re tempted to love more than Jesus, that will distract you from following him. And a distracted heart won’t bear fruit.

Here’s the good news: if by reading this you see that your heart is drifting toward being distracted, that means that God is CURRENTLY giving you a receptive heart to His Word. You have the opportunity to pray to God and confess how your heart has been distracted. You have the opportunity to repent of loving other things more than Jesus. You have the opportunity to receive God’s Word and bear much fruit.

Jesus says in verse 8: “Still other seed fell on good ground and it grew up, producing fruit that increased thirty, sixty, and a hundred times.” He explains this soil in verse 20: “And those like seed sown on good ground hear the word, welcome it, and produce fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred times what was sown.” If God is stirring in you as you realize that your heart has been distracted, then you are this kind of soil, that is receiving the Word well. Welcome it. Allow Jesus to change your life. And your fruit will show.