Ecology Of The Heart

Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.

Proverbs 4:23

Increasing importance is being placed every year in America on cleaning up our environment—and rightly so. As stewards of God’s creation, we have not always done the best job of preserving and protecting His handiwork. But Jesus talked about a different kind of ecosystem that deserves an even higher priority—cultivating the soil of the heart.

Jesus told a parable of a sower, seed, and soil. But as any good gardener will tell you, the effectiveness of the sower and his seed is totally dependent on the condition of the soil. In fact, Jesus said this was a key to understanding all His other parables (Mark 4:13). The parable of the soils says this: when God’s Word is sown into heart-soil that is prepared, and that seed springs up and the new life is nurtured, salvation is the result. But if kingdom truth is sown into hard heart-soil, or if the soil dries up or is rocky, it stands little chance of saving the soul.

The parable of the sower and soils is not just about being saved; it’s also about living as saved. Because seeds of God’s truth come continually to our hearts, our hearts must be continually kept soft and fertile.

The first order of Christian ecology is the purity of the heart.