My oldest children, at some point in their lives, accepted the Lord. However, it seemed that through their older teen years they seemed to fall away and into a worldly existence that always coaxes us to follow, as many teens and young adults do today. Why was this? The fruit just didn’t seem to be there. In other words, they seemed to know about God, but their walk didn’t always match up. I used to think that if I had known God at their age, my whole outlook on life and my actions would have been so different than what I, in fact, lived. At least I hoped they would have been. My kids "knew" so much more than me at their age about God. How could they go astray?

So many others surrender to the world’s ways after claiming to be a "Christian", and their "fruit" just doesn’t seem to measure up to God’s Word. After all, didn’t Jesus tell us that we’d know them by their fruit (Matthew 7:20)? By the actions (fruit) of some Christians, I often wonder if they are truly born-again. For these folks I try to fervently pray.

When I learned about the parable of the sower and the seeds that fell on four different types of soil, it put things into perspective for me. Jesus explains it well to his disciples in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 13. The sower sowed seeds on four different soils:

1.  The first seeds fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate them up (verse 4).

2.  The second seeds fell on rocky places and they immediately sprang up, but were scorched when the sun had risen because they had no root so they withered away (verses 5-6).

3.  The third sees fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them out (verse 7).

4.  The fourth seeds fell on the good soil and yielded a crop (verse 8).

Jesus then explains the parable later in the chapter:

1.  The first of the sower's seeds represents anyone who hears the Word of the Kingdom, and does not understand it, and the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart (verse 19).

2.  The second of the sower's seeds represents one who hears the Word, and immediately receives it with joy, yet has no firm root, and when persecution arises because of the Word, immediately he falls away (verses 20-21).

3.  The third of the sower's seeds represents a man who hears the Word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the Word, and it becomes unfruitful (verse 22).

4.  The fourth of the sower's seeds represents one who hears the Word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings it forth abundantly (verse 23).

This definitely explains why some people "claim" to be born-again and do not bear fruit. Many outrightly reject God. Others give God lip service, but do not stand strong when persecution or temptation come their way. Still others hear and say they believe, but when the ways of the world come along, then they choose to go that way instead of the way of God. Truly, only those who fall in the category of the last are indeed the ones who bear fruit. All the others reject or abandon God and perhaps were never actually born-again in the first place. They haven’t "lost their salvation". They never had it to begin with.

So how does this apply to our lives today? It is, without a doubt, fundamental to our walk with Him and in understanding just what Jesus wants in us. You are either for Him or against Him. There are no gray areas. It is all or nothing, black or white, Jesus or death! He doesn’t just want our lip service when it will make US look good among others. Nor does He just want us to KNOW about Him. We have to take Him from our head (knowledge) to our HEART (relationship), and out of that flows unconditional true love, power, wisdom, overwhelming joy, and a complete release from all conformity and expectations in a sinful world. When your walk with Jesus becomes a heart thing, you will truly be able to live a victorious Christian life, but only with Jesus at the helm. All other ways lead to death.

Thus, it’s not just about talking the talk or knowing the Lord. More so, it’s about walking the walk, and living, submitting to His authority, and loving the only King worthy to be praised. Our walk with God signifies our obedience to Him and the choices we make show our witness of Christ. When we make our walk with God a heart thing, we have all the power of Christ within us, and when we use it in the will of God, things happen. Scripture becomes alive in ways that it had not before. Joy and hope abound within us in unexplainable ways even amidst persecution and trials. The world’s desires within us become a thing of the past or if they still tempt us to follow, we are convicted when we sin and sorrowful till we confess them and make things right in our lives. We are able to relinquish our expectations of others, and we can release and give up control of other people to God. We become liberated in unimaginable ways. Who we are and who we become in Christ takes precedence, and living for Him is ALL that matters. And we will never want to go back.

God gave us a free will and He desires for us to exercise that free will. Isn’t love always better when given freely without strings attached instead of forced upon us? But because of our love for Him and even more so His undying, unquenchable, and unconditional love for us, we reach a place where we will not want to return to our old ways, and we grab hold of the desire to serve Him and commit to Him as He has done for us.

One never reaches this place unless they have checked their heart. Matthew 15:8 says, "This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me." As I understand this perspective of God more, I do realize that along with the parable of the sower and the seeds, it is more than just knowledge of Jesus that we must embrace. It is a heart thing, a RELATIONSHIP. And that relationship comprises obedience, a surrender, a dying to self so that we can live with Christ. When we truly seek to understand the love that God has for us, we cannot help but be humbled by the fact that we mean a whole lot to this boundless and omnipotent God who did NOT have to do what He did. He loved us enough to sacrifice His own Son. Contemplate that thought for a moment. To anyone with children, this should pull at your heart strings!

In one conversation I had with my Dad, he couldn’t quite understand this view of God. "What? You mean you never believed in Jesus before, while you were growing up?" His question was certainly legitimate in trying to understand where I was in my walk NOW with Jesus as opposed to THEN. After all, when you grow up under the law and try to work your way to heaven’s door, it’s hard to see yourself in a RELATIONSHIP of grace with the Lord God and that His salvation is a gift which we cannot earn. Perhaps he was fearful that I had turned aside from the same God he had raised me to believe in.

"No, Dad. That’s not it at all. I always believed in Jesus. I always KNEW about Jesus. But I didn’t always have a RELATIONSHIP with Him. That’s it. That’s what I missed. That relationship. That heart thing. And then I had to die to my self."

Consider your own heart. I challenge you. Where is it? Who do you serve? Have you made Jesus Lord of your life? There is abundant freedom when the knowledge of Jesus travels that 18 inches from our head to our heart! Make that path real today!