If God’s spiritual life is within you, you have been freely given the supernatural gift of the new birth. Be a lifeguard Watch over, protect, and nurture it. Never take it for granted. Follow these steps from “The Parable of the Sower.”

1) Avoid trampled paths. The graceful seeds of life are devoured in such a hard place.
2) Soften the hardness that’s inside of you. Hardness withers and kills life. “God resist the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
3) Resist distractions. They choke out life and keep it from maturing and growing strong. “Quench not the Spirit.”
4) Be fertile ground. Keep your heart fully open to the risen Jesus Christ and His grace. Listen to and obey Him throughout each day. “Stir up the gift that is in you.”

1) The trampled paths of traditional and institutionalized Christianity tend to go in circles that lead nowhere. Sermon after sermon is presented to hearers who seldom do anything to intentionally and consistently apply what they hear in their daily life. Weak after week church attendees stay weak and dependent on a professional pastor to plan and present a prepackaged Sunday morning program as they sit passively and politely try to listen. But what does such a thing produce — what is its fruit? Pastor dependent church attendees often seem to be passive, compliant, casual, satisfied, discipleship-avoiding, lukewarm, nominal, Spirit-quenching, Sunday morning audience members.

2) Hardheartedness usually produces self-righteous. Look what it did to the Pharisee who prayed, “‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” (Luke 18:11-12) Hardheartedness is especially dangerous to faithful church attendees because it can make them think that they are morally superior to the people who don’t attend church, and that they are better than the people who disagree with them politically. It can make pride take off and rocket into cruelty. History shows how self-righteous people can easily step into manipulating, controlling, insulting, name calling, being unjust, blindly accusing, bullying, persecuting, violently attacking, and even systematically killing people who disagree with them. Please don’t let your heart say hard. Let Jesus soften it.

3) Distractions can appear delightful but spiritually they can be disastrous. They can blur and destroy your daily focus on the presence, power, and reality of the risen Jesus, choke off His influence on you, and lead you into addiction to all sorts of things including religious and political idolatry. Distractions are entertaining and compelling, but they aren’t edifying — they steal your attention, but they don’t build you up and empower you to live a victorious lifestyle. Dodge distractions before they tackle you. If they have you laying comfortably in the mud, get yourself up and begin to seek the inner kingdom of God so that you can train yourself to overflow with the fruit of the Spirit — “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

4) Ask God to cultivate your heart and to make it amazingly fertile ground. Ask Him to make you desperately hungry and thirsty for His presence, His will, and His righteousness in your life. Let God the Holy Spirit show you your shortcomings and sins and the wickedness that is in your own heart. Let Him convict you and convince you of your great need for humility, confession, and repentance, Let God plow up and fertilize your heart so that it will be meek and pliable to receive and faithfully obey His presence throughout each day. Courageously and consistently seek for King Jesus to fully rule and direct you from within, from this moment until the day you die. Live in heart-to-heart connection with and mutual submission to Spirit-led people throughout each week as you spur one another on and encourage one another. (Hebrews 10:24-25) “Stir up the gift that is in you.”