Four Types of Ground (3 of 4)

Have you ever heard the saying, "If you lay down with dogs, you'll most likely get up with fleas"? How about "It is hard to fly with eagles if you surround yourself with turkeys."? Well, as we turn our attention to the third type of ground in the parable of the "Sower and the Seed" from Matthew 13, the seed is impacted more by the "bad seed" planted in the ground than the ground itself. In other words, regardless of the ground you find yourself planted in, who you choose to align yourself with will have a tremendous impact on the life you live and the choices you make. 

 

"Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants." Matthew 13:7. In this third installation of our study of the four types of ground, it really doesn't matter about the quality of the seed, or the fertility of the soil, the fact that the "good" seed tucked in with the thorns which choked the good out of the young, tender plants. For me, the analogies above give a good description of what Jesus's parable was demonstrating. Basically, when you make the decision to serve God, you also have to decide who you are going to serve on a daily basis. I'm not saying you have to separate yourself from family or friends that you do life with each day, but I am saying you have to be strong in your faith and have a deep relationship with God, or you run the chance of falling into the "turkey's nest" of life.

 

For our third type of ground, the fact that thorns and fruit producing seeds can thrive in the same soil, drives home the point that as those who choose to serve God live their day to day life, it isn't a matter of disassociating oneself from the world, but instead nourishing your life with positive relationships and life building nutrients. Going to church in and of itself won't assure us that we will make it to Heaven one day, but if given the option of spending your days in a bar or in a small group studying the Word of God, the odds are the time spent reading, sharing, and learning more about the God we serve with fellow believers will produce a bountiful harvest one day. Not to say we need to separate ourselves from anyone, yet as we walk closer with God, we then are better equipped to help those that need our support. In Luke 5:31-32 Jesus tells His disciples, "... It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." We are called to be a witness to the world, we just have to be well grounded in our relationship with God so that the world doesn't choke out the "good" that God has planted in our hearts. 

 

The thorns of this life are real. Addictions, deceit, greed, lust, and pride are just a few examples of the seeds that can sprout up in our families, our marriages, or in the workplace and begin to choke out the good that God has planted in our hearts. Without the guidance of God's Word, His Holy Spirit, and faithful men and women serving God in our lives, the ground we live on and in can certainly make a difference and eventually choke out the good. Today, make the choice to distance yourself from the thorns attempting to take up residence in your life. The seeds in the parable had no choice where the sower scattered them, thank God, you have a choice. Choose God!

Coach Carter

 

 

 

Four Types of Ground (2 of 4)

 

"Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root." Matthew 13:5-6.

 

Last week we started a four-part series on the types of ground, not soil necessarily, and how Jesus used the types of ground in the parable of the sower and the seed. Last week's message centered around the hard path type of ground and how a contrite heart makes it hard to accept God's Word and His plans. This week we will be focusing on the rocky ground found in the verses above. 

 

The seeds that fell on rocky soil were able to take root, but when the temps rose and the skies dried up, the tender new plants shriveled up and withered away. People who fall into this category may have never developed a relationship with God before, but by whatever means they are introduced to God, the One and only true living God and a seed is planted. The euphoria of being introduced to the God who created the world and all things in it is indescribable, yet maintaining that mile-high feeling can be a challenge especially when adversity sprouts and your relationship moves from one based around feelings to one based on trust and faith. Just as seeds that fell among the rocks struggled to survive due to their root system being so shallow, those who do not have a deep-rooted faith may also struggle to stay the course and remain committed to God's plan for the life He gave us to live.  

 

Way too many people new in their faith find it hard to trust in a God they can't see. When things are going as planned it is easy to call yourself a believer because life is good and it doesn't take much effort to follow God. The problem is that life typically doesn't stay easy and when that happens we start wanting to blame someone for life's adversities and afflictions. Even folks that have followed after Christ for several years can find it hard to have faith when the temperatures rise and earthly conditions become hard to handle. Those that have developed a relationship with God know that God is real and that he is there with us. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Psalms 46:1. Faith allows us to withstand and even thrive in the adversities of life. 

 

Regardless of where you are today in your relationship with God it is comforting to know that He is always there. It doesn't matter what we have done, or where we have been, God is there with us. You will understand that the deeper your roots go into the Word of God. The time you spend getting to know God and seeking out His will for the life you are living, the deeper your root system will go and the nutrients of faith and trust will nurture your soul and provide you the strength you will need to face whatever lies ahead! Get rooted in Christ!

Coach Carter

 

  

Four Types of Ground (1 of 4)

From an agricultural standpoint there are six recognized types of soil: sand, clay, silt, chalk, peat, and loam. Certain plants do better in certain soil types, and in many instances, there are seeds that just can't thrive in some soil types. Jesus shared a parable that sometimes get misinterpreted to be referencing types of soil, but actually, the parable of the sower and the seed is more about the type of ground on which the seed fell more than the soil type itself. 

 

 "Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown." Matthew 13:3-8. 

 

Over the next four weeks, we will be looking at each of the four types of ground Jesus referenced in the parable of the sower and the seed. Our goal will be to determine which type of ground / environment you are currently planted and how that may be impacting your life's purpose. Today, we will be looking at solid ground. In the parable Jesus describes the first ground as the path. Paths are created by heavy use and over time become compacted and hard. What chance does seed strewn on a solid surface have to grow? Zero. In the parable, the seed that landed on the solid ground ended up being nothing more than bird feed. Later in the same chapter Jesus explained that the seed that fell on the solid ground was like someone that hears the word of God, but turns away from it and doesn't try to apply it to his or her life. 

 

Are you that solid ground person? Do you feel like life has trampled over you time and time again, leaving you hard and bitter? Whether it is due to a broken relationship, a life tragedy, or any form of addiction that is holding you down, once you have developed that hard heart it is a challenge to allow anyone inside. The solid ground persona can't see the potential for growth. Life has dealt you a hand and that is where you are going to have to live. But there is hope. “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." Psalm 42:11. Hope is not just wishing things will get better, the hope that the Bible teaches about is a belief system. We find hope in our relationship with God. That relationship is built not bought. "Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." Those with a solid ground mentality can't see how things could ever be better, there is no hope present. 

 

If you are living a "solid ground" life today, maybe it is time to allow God to cultivate your soul's soil. Hard times will come and sometimes they may even stay, but when you place your hope in God your perspective will change. Instead of looking at life as what is happening to you, you can look through the lens of what is happening through you for the glory of the God who made you and placed you exactly where you are today. Paul's words of encouragement in the face of hardships are a source of strength for those living within that solid ground mental state:

 

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."  II Corinthians 12:9-10

 

Till your soul with God's offer of strength in your weakness, and allow His seeds of perseverance, character, and hope flourish in your life. God's hope never fails! 

 

Coach Carter 

 

Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Forever)

Something to consider. In Hebrews 13:8 we are given this assurance, "Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever." God was with you yesterday, He is with you today, and God is with us for every tomorrow that will ever occur, forever. For some, the idea of a God who is infinite and omnipotent is hard to grasp. For those who do not build a personal relationship with Him, it may seem hard to believe that the same God who said "Let there be light", and there was light. Genesis 1:3 could ever be a God that hears our daily prayers, and guides us through His Holy Spirit. Yet, the God who created all things is that God. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. Pastor Wallace shared a quote today and I tweaked it a tad for today's Flat Tire Thought, "A God that is little enough to be fully explained, is not a God that is big enough to do the unexplainable." God was there in the beginning, God is with you right where you are today, and that same God will be there eternally through every tomorrow your mind can conceive. 

 

It may be hard to fully comprehend the complexity of a God that knows our thoughts before we think them and a God that has a plan mapped out for every person that has ever been and will ever be, but that is our God. Couple that with truth that God still gives us free will to make our own decisions and then allows us to follow the paths that we choose. That is part of the beauty of the God we serve. At times it may seem mind boggling, but back to our quote above, if we can explain everything there is to know about God then placing our faith in Him would be a simple task. Trusting and believing in God is what builds our faith in Him. 

 

If you know God, I encourage you to get to know Him better. Spend time with Him and share your heart with Him. If you know who God is, but you don't have a personal relationship with the God of Adam and Eve, the God of Moses and Abraham, the same God of David and Solomon, and the God of our Savior Jesus Christ then I implore you to meet Him today. And if you do not know the God who was, is and will always be, then today is the day to reach out and meet Him. He is here, He is where you are, and He will be forevermore. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelations 1:8.

 

Coach Carter

 

Don't Get Stuck in the Middle

Craig Groeschel, lead pastor of Life Church, once quoted that "You can experience God on the mountaintop, but you get to know God in the valley." When I first read that statement, I didn't take away the full significance of what Pastor Groeschel was saying, so you may want to reread his quote one more time. Then, pause to reflect on the depth of the true meaning behind Groeschel's wisdom.

 

Mountaintop experiences come in various shapes and sizes. Literally, when you are on top of a mountain, the view of God's creation is most definitely enhanced. Standing on top of a peak in the Great Smokey Mountains at sunrise, it is hard to deny the grandeur of our God. Other mountaintop experiences are more symbolic such as standing in the delivery room as your child is welcomed to your family, or when the job promotion you've dreamed about becomes a reality. Whatever it is that qualifies as being on the mountaintop with God, those are times in our life we experience the God who created it all! “I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:1-2.

 

 Where mountaintop experiences with God are desirable and welcomed, I don't know too many people who ask God to create those valley experiences that Pastor Groeschel described. Valleys are dark, deep, and lonely to the point that you can feel abandoned or forgotten. Health valleys, financial valleys, or relationship valleys pull us down and make us realize we do not want to be walking alone, and we need direction, focus, comfort, and support. That is when we get to know God. We call on Him in our weakness and He is there. "Yea though I walk thru the valley of the shadow of death, Thou art with me. "Psalm 23:4. When we continue to seek Him through prayer, worship, and spend time in His word, we develop a relationship with God. We begin to realize that God was always there, and that it was us that had strayed away. 

 

Walking through the valleys alone is tough, Jesus even warned us that we would face hard challenges in life, but He also assured us that we would not go it alone. "... in the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." John 16:33. Knowing that we are not alone, realizing that the same God that made the sun, moon, and stars made each of us unique and special to Him, and spending time with God on the mountain, in the valley, or anywhere in between gives us the strength we need to carry on! Spend some time on your mountain top with God, but build your relationship with Him through the valleys of this life!

 Coach Carter

 

 

The Risk Factor

There's a certain degree of risk in any venture. For the entrepreneur, charting the course of opening a new business has about as much potential to be successful as there is for it to be a complete flop. Taking a relationship to the next level can be a move in the right direction, but it also involves the risk of rejection or disappointment. Choosing to make a career change places the comfort of the known on the shelf and shifts our current lifestyle to the "at risk" category. The coach making the call to go for it on fourth down, the twenty-something year old who decides to join the Air Force, or even the chef who decides to tweak her recipe, every decision has a risk factor quotient.

 

So, common sense would cause us to ask the question, "Then why take the risk? Stay the course with the established and proven path and reduce the risk of failure." Play it safe, don't mess with the formula, I mean remember "New Coke"? It just seems logical to not rock the boat, right? On the surface that may appear to be the right choice, but in all actuality, the choice to not take a chance has the potential to pose as much of a risk factor as taking the plunge and falling short in the endeavor. At the end of the day, if success was a guarantee, then everybody would inch out on the limb a little further, but the hard truth is that even if you work your hardest and you have the best idea in the world since a pocket on a shirt, sometimes things just don't work out and the outcome appears to be failure. 

 

Yet, what if you don't take the chance? The risk of failing to launch may have more long-term detrimental impact than taking the shot and missing the mark. If you attempt and miss, you have the memory of what went wrong which provides the opportunity to improve those aspects of the process. Going forward the chances of being successful armed with the knowledge of what not to do are improved exponentially. Read Dweck's "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" for a much deeper look into the idea of a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. Taking a chance may have risk associated with it, but not taking a chance stunts our potential and limits our opportunity to impact the world! 

 

What is the difference in the person who doesn't take a chance and the one that breaks the glass ceiling and impacts the world in which they live? I believe the deciding factor is faith. Faith that says "He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world" I John 4:4. Faith that faces adversity and doubt and moves forward boldly and confidently, "Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong." II Corinthians 12:10. Faith that says I may get knocked down, but I will get back up again! "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33. Faith that says take the risk, you are not taking it alone! "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." Psalm 23:4. As we noted earlier, any venture has a certain degree of risk associated with the choice. The risk of failing to make a choice carries a much greater risk, the risk of failing to fulfill the purpose God placed you on this earth to fulfill! 

Coach Carter

Through It or In It

 

As a former English teacher, I remember planning out creative ways to help students remember different parts of speech, notably, prepositions. For those of you who may have hit the snooze button during your own prepositional tutorial, prepositions normally proceed a noun and provide a relationship to another object. "The boy, on the bicycle, rode by my house." The preposition on explains where the boy was in relationship to the bike, he was on it. So, if you did happen to miss out on your own educational pursuit of prepositions, possibly this introduction to today's Flat Tire Thought may suffice. Beyond that, this week's thought for the week does deal with two prepositions and both are directly related to where you are in relationship to what is going on in your life right now. Today I am posing the question, "Are you living through "it" or are you living in "it". 

 

I suppose we should first define "it" since I have placed a certain degree of emphasis on this tiny pronoun. "It" can be whatever "it" is that you are experiencing in your life. I've always said you may be just coming out of "it", headed towards "it", or you may be smack dab right there in the middle of "it" as you read today's message. "It" may have a beginning and end mark, or it could be that "it" is something that you may have to endure for an extended period of time. "It" could be something that unless God intervenes and performs a miracle in your life you will deal with "it" for the rest of your life. Back to my previous question, the crux of the matter isn't about the duration of whatever "it" is, but more so where you are living in relationship to whatever "it" is. 

 

"It" as a pronoun can be the subject of a sentence, "It was as big as an elephant." So, for our purpose today we will utilize "it" as the subject of what you are living through or in. "It" represents something of significance that is impacting your life in an adverse way. "It" could be a health issue, "it" could be a relationship matter, "it" could be a financial situation, or "it" could be any of a plethora of issues or situations that you are dealing with in your own life. Regardless of what "it" is, today I am asking you to reflect on how you are dealing with whatever your "it" is. 

 

God has a plan for your life, Jeremiah 29:11 assures us "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." God's plans are not going to always line up with what we had planned out for our lives, many times what happens to us would never have been something we would have put into our plans if we were the sole narrator of what happens to us in life. I don't think any set of parents would have written out a plan that would have their child be born deaf, blind, and mute, but Helen Keller most likely would never have inspired and touched the lives of so many people had she not been handed exact set of conditions in her life. Joseph would not have risen to the position of second in command in Egypt if it were not for the series of events in his life that journeyed the spectrum of being sold into slavery by his brothers, cast into prison for a crime he didn't commit, and then enduring his prison term long beyond what he should have. Yet it all came down to how Joseph thrived in the hand he had been dealt. At the end of Joseph's odyssey in Genesis 50:20, Joseph assures the same brothers that sold him into slavery that "You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people." To coin an old phrase, Good took some lemons in Joseph's life and turned them into some sweet lemonade!

 

Circling back to our original question, I would ask you to reflect on your own position in relationship to what is going on in your life. Are you living through "it", standing still waiting on God to miraculously heal your infirmities or cast aside the adversity in your life that you believe is holding you back from fulfilling your life's destiny? Or, are you living out the best life you can live while God's plan is being fulfilled as you live in "it"? As I stated in the previous paragraph, God has a plan for your life, it is your choice to live through "it" and just go through the motions of living and breathing, or you can make the choice to live in it and seek out what God has in store for you. "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28." I choose to live in this life God has given me to live, and I will attempt to fulfill whatever plans God has for me to live out. What will you choose today? Will you live through ups and downs of life, or will you live in those very same ups and downs and impact the world you live in for the God who made you just the way you are?

Coach Carter