Excitement Isn't the Same as Rooted
I'm excited to keep going in this series, because today I want to deal with something that trips up a lot of people right after they get excited about the Word — and I want to help you get past it.
If I looked at your life, I could tell you the seeds you've sown, or allowed to be sown into you. And by that same measure, I can look at what you're planting right now and tell you where you're headed.
Your seed today tells me exactly where you're headed.
A lot of people don't like that, because people don't like personal responsibility. It's easier to blame God for what's missing than to look at the ground.
I don't have watermelon growing in my backyard, and I don't have strawberries either. Not because God withheld them — because I never sowed any. That's it. That's the whole reason.
Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies...
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”
John 12:24 (NKJV)
Do you realize how far Jesus took this principle? He said He Himself had to fall to the ground and die, like a seed, so He could bear much fruit. God the Father sowed Jesus as a seed, and we are the harvest He reaped.
Even God operates by the law of seedtime and harvest.
Don't just pray the problem — sow the Word first.
Scripture warns that when someone turns their ear away from hearing the Word of God, even their prayers become an offense. Why would that be? Because the Word is the seed you lay hold of when you pray.
You want to see somebody's life actually change? Sow the Word. Sow yourself into talk-show wisdom, and all you'll get is a talk-show harvest. I'm looking for real deliverance — and that only comes from the Word.
The devil isn't afraid of religion. He's afraid of the Word.
Think about the seven sons of Sceva in the book of Acts — traveling exorcists who heard that Jesus' name worked, and tried using it themselves without ever actually knowing Him. The demon they were addressing said, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?" And they ran out of that house beaten.
The demon had ignored them for years. It was the name of Jesus, actually invoked, that changed everything.
That's what happens when you allow the Word to be sown down into your heart instead of just playing religion with it. Problems don't develop because the Word failed you — they develop because you finally encountered power.
Stony ground: when the excitement wears off, do you stumble?
The second ground in this parable hears the Word and receives it with gladness — but has no root, so when pressure comes, it stumbles.
Have you ever gotten excited about working out, started Monday morning, and by the second day your arms hurt so bad you didn't want to get up? That's stony ground. You received it emotionally, and then tribulation — sore muscles, in this case — knocked you right out of it.
I want you to get excited about what you hear. But excitement is not the same as rooted. Excitement will come and go with anything — a new car stops feeling new eventually too. The Word has to become true to you on the days you don't feel anything at all.
How do you actually get this word to take root?
When something in a teaching hits me and I recognize it as my answer, I don't just hear it once — I go back and listen to it again, multiple times, because I know it landed but hasn't rooted yet.
I set reminders on my phone to put things from the Word into practice, even on days I'm not excited about it. Call it mechanical if you want — that's exactly how you water a seed you actually intend to harvest.
Don't let anyone convince you the Word doesn't work just because their own excitement faded and they walked away. It works. But you have to move past the emotion of the first day and keep watering until it takes root.
Fight To Win.
