It never ceases to amaze me how many christians I talk to who simply have no faith when it comes to temptation. They become defeated, and sometimes they don't really know why. Sometimes, they are locked in a struggle which they feel they can't win, and they round and round and round with that particular thing they are struggling with.
Deuteronomy 32:20 �And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.
Matthew 17:20 �And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Galatians 3:11 �But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.
And yet, even the disciples time after time after time again had no faith. Many times Jesus gave them a stern look right after he brought them through something, and said, "O Ye of little faith, why did you doubt?" I imagine that if the disciples were like that, and Jesus had patience with them, then He must also have patience with us when we struggle with faith issues.
It's so obvious what their problem is, which is that they have no faith. Yet it's much harder to the layman to explain why, and although it's readily available in the Bible to those who are diligent to seek for it, most pastors never teach on the subject. I wonder why, since it's at the core of christian development....
For the christian to grow, faith is needed. The Bible states it so much better than I ever could.
We are initially saved by grace through faith, (Ephesians 2:8) and not by works. Though works are important (James 2:20) we cannot work our way to heaven. We can never repay God the debt of sin that we have piled up over the years, so thank God for His grace. At salvation, our faith is like the mustard seed, which Jesus states in Mark 4:31; is that the mustard seed is the smallest of seeds. And yet like faith, it can grow so big that the birds of the air can nest in it.
What things in our life hold us back from greater faith? How do we increase our faith? And how do we know when our faith is "up there"? Those questions, and their answers, are the subject of this article.
Matthew 13:3 �And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
4 �And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
5 �Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
6 �And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. 7 �And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
8 �But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
9 �Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
Jesus tells the disciples later in this chapter the meaning of this parable. The sower was Jesus, and He was sowing the Word of God. The seed that fell among the wayside were those that heard the word of the Kingdom of God, and they didn't understand it, and so the enemy came, and snatched away what was sown in their hearts.
Romans 7:14 �For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.
15 �For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.
16 �If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.
17 �Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. 18 �For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
19 �For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
20 �Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Upon first glance, it looks like Paul is talking about being a baby christian...but in the verses right after these, the lie of the "Carnal Christian" is found out...
Romans 7:21 �I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
22 �For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
23 �But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24 �O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
25 �I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
You see? Paul is talking about the person he was under the law of Moses, not the person he became under grace. The dead giveaway is when he talks about the law in verse 21, and the law of God in verse 22. Those who are christians are not under the law of Moses anymore, and Gentiles were never under the law.
Romans 6:14 �For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. 15 �What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.
The second dead giveaway is what Paul describes as a "captivity of sin" in verse 23. A christian is no longer under the bondage, or captivity of sin. Though sin remains in the members, which has to be daily mortified (killed), the nature of sin is removed from the christian, called the "old man" (Romans 6:6). Therefore, there is no such thing as a "Carnal Christian," only lazy christians and/or christians with no patience and faith.
The seed that fell among the thorns are those christians who lose total focus on God by falling into distractions. Those disctractions can be anything; food, alcohol, television, internet, music, drugs, etc. Anything can become a thorn in your life. These "thorns" constrain growth in the christian just like a real thornbush constrains the growth of other plants around it.
This particular part of the parable is not talking about christians. The people here on the wayside are those who hear the Word of God and they either don't understand it or don't want to understand it because it means they have to change. But then, sometimes we can be like that too...from time to time even christians can find it advantagous to be "blissfully ignorant."
The seed that falls among stony ground are those who first receive the word with great joy, but since they have no root, when tribulation or persecution hits, they fall. To some, this defines what has come to be called "Carnal Christians," or otherwise those christians that never grow out of the baby stage of christian development.
But although I believe that some people never grow out of the baby stage of christian developement, upon closer inspection, there really is no such thing as a "Carnal Christian". The definitions comes from a passage in Romans 7.
Just as it will choke the life out of the other plants, so too will the thorns we allow in our lives to choke out the Kingdom of God if we allow it to go that far. The thorns in our life are designed by the Enemy to make us too comfortable to step out into the unknown and do God's will. When we are comfortable, and not sharing the Gospel with the lost, we are too comfortable, and therefore unproductive Christians.
And that also counts for those who feel they can just support the missionaries and get the job done. God called for all of us to go out and reap in the harvest of souls that are the lost. Someone or some people cared enough about us to love us into the Kingdom of God, so if you're not doing that, you're not producing for the Kingdom of God.
And then there are the seeds that fall on the good ground. Some produce fruit, a hundred-fold, sixty-fold, and thirty-fold. These are the christians who are in the Will of God, out there in the world doing the work of the Lord. They have hidden the Word of God in their hearts so their work isn't void, they've dropped down great roots of faith, and they've succeeded in gardening the thorns from their life. Even so, some only produce thirty, some sixty, and some one hundred.
At first glance, it looks like some are working harder than others, but that simply isn't the case. As in the story of the talents, (Matthew 25) Jesus answers this by saying, "To whom is given much, much will be expected". So now you know some of the things in our life that hold us back from greater faith. Obviously, some of the other things that hold us back are sins...which I will cover in more detail in the next section....