(3) A thorny heart. This is a heart that is full of thorns, a heart that is full of cares and riches of this world, full of pleasures of life. It is a heart that is earthbound – always looking for what to get and not who to be. It is a heart that chases money into the grave. Meanwhile, heaven is real and no one ever stumbles into heaven by chance; you must make deliberate effort to make it there. If you are caught up in this, you need to talk to God and ask for help. The world is designed today in such a way that if you are not careful, you will major on things that don’t have eternal value.

(4) A good heart. This is the heart that retains the word of God with patience and honesty. This honesty is about admitting that you need help, admitting that you need God’s word to transform you, it is about humbling yourself before God and asking him to transform you. “A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” Psa. 51:17^b.

What determines your heart condition is nothing but your reaction to the word of God. What is your reaction to the word of God? It is your reaction, your attitude that determines your heart condition.

The parable of the sower has been twisted to mean only seed sowing; people are taught only about sowing seeds and no longer about the heart condition. The seed they refer to is not even the word of God but money. Unfortunately, the only seed many Christians know about in this parable today is money. They have elevated money above the word of God and that is why the Church is producing worldly Christians. Jesus made a categorical statement in Luke 8:18 “Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have”. What Jesus is saying here, essentially, is – what is your response to the word of God?

There is another heart condition that is not included in this parable but which I dread to have anything to do with. This can be found in Psa. 56:5 “They are always twisting what I say. All their thoughts are how to harm me” (TLB). This is a very dangerous heart condition. Psa. 58:1-7 reads, “Justice? You high and mighty politicians don’t even know the meaning of the word! Fairness? Which of you has any left? Not one! All your dealings are crooked: you give ‘justice’ in exchange for bribes. These men are born sinners, lying from their earliest words! They are poisonous as deadly snakes, cobras that close their ears to the most expert of charmers. O God, break off their fangs. Tear out the teeth of these young lions, Lord. Let them disappear like water into thirsty ground. Make their weapons useless in their hands” (TLB). This is the description of a twisted heart.

A twisted heart will hear what was not said, a twisted heart will hear a word and misinterpret it, a twisted heart twists everything you say. If there is any witchcraft that is most prevalent, it is the witchcraft in the heart. When unbelievers manifest this heart condition, it is understandable but it is very painful to admit that it exists in the Church also. Some people in the Church feel pained when they see others doing better than them. If you are one of such people, you need to kill it because it blocks your heaven. What produces this and other perversions? When people around you are succeeding and excelling, you should celebrate and rejoice with them because what you celebrate is what you attract. If you are in the habit of not rejoicing with people when they excel, you must deal with it so that it does not consign you to the way of the snake. This attitude is a very serious limiter that makes people crawl forever.

The Bible says “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it” Jer. 17.9. A twisted heart is a heart that is in perfect union with the snake and their way is the way of the snake. Even in the millennium, dust will continue to be the snake’s food according to Isa. 65:25 “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat”. The snake is a dust eater and will crawl forever. No snake shall fly. Get rid of it before it destroys you.

TO BE CONTINUED.