Rock Gardens & Weed Beds

Many folks think that there is something to reccomend in being middle of the road in perspective and attitude, and something bad about being extreme in the same. I can understand why in many situations that may be a wise course, but it's anything but wise when it comes to Christianity. In following Christ, the milquetoast middle is nothing but a muddle. And dangerous at that!

Offered for your consideration: the parable of the sower. The extremes were clear in their result whether for good or bad, whereas the mucky middle had the look, even the promise of fruitfulness, but not the substance. Why? Only by selling out, getting extreme in focus, can we achieve what was intended by the scattering of the gospel seed in our lives. Only a single-minded vision of submitting to what "Christ in us" is attempting to grow can make our lives fruitful in God.

In God, fruitfulness is what counts. For the seed which is the Word to get anything done in us that He came to do, there has to be singularity in the soil of our hearts. Our soil must be set apart, exclusively, for the growth and fruitfulness of that one seed. It must yield no room, nor nutrient, nor anything else anything else would need to grow or retard growth.

If our soil is a mixed bag, chunky with rocks, or infested with other kinds of seed, our appearance may seem fine for a time, but over time, our fruitlessness will reveal the unfortunate truth about our hearts. Like any farmer planting his fields with a crop, when God plants seed in us, he expects that kind of fruit out of us. Let's say that God farms by the Christ-in-Christ-out method (CICO). When rocks and weeds compete for the soil with that seed, the seed's growth is stunted and its fruit is nonexistent.

God wants an abundant harvest for what he's sown into our lives, so how can we offer him rock gardens and weed beds and expect that he'll be satisfied, or that we would be safe from his retribution?