Sowing Seeds
But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
Matthew 13:23 (NIV) 

There’s an old story that goes like this: An aged and frail Emperor knew his time was limited and it was time to name a successor. He called all the young people in his kingdom together. He gave to each one of them one seed and told them, these seeds are special. Go home, plant the seed, and water it. Come back here in one year with what you have grown from this one seed, and when you bring back what you have grown, I will judge it and I’ll then choose my successor.

Young Ling was there that day and he, like the others, was given his one seed. He went home, seized a pot, planted the seed, and watered it carefully. Every day, he would water it and watch to see if that seed had grown. Others around him began bragging about the growth they were seeing. Others claimed to have had tall trees and tall plants, but not Ling. And he, of course, said nothing to his friends.

It was time, however, to present what they had been able to do with the seed given to them. Youth from all over that kingdom brought to the emperor their plants for inspection. When Ling got to the palace, he looked around at the beautiful plants of all shapes and sizes. Ling set his empty pot on the floor among all of the growth around him.

Kids, of course, started laughing, being cruel as they sometimes can be. Then, in walks the emperor, and amidst all of this growth and greenery, he spots Ling’s empty pot in the back and orders guards to bring them up to the front. The emperor turns to the crowd and says,

“Behold, this is your new emperor. One year ago I gave everyone here a seed. But I gave every one of you boiled seeds. I knew when I gave them to you that they would not grow. All of you went out and replaced what I gave you and brought me back fakery. And yet Ling was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me back the seed I gave him. Therefore, he is the one who will be the kingdom’s new emperor.”

This is what has happened to the spiritual understanding of God’s church and the disappointment that the seeds we have planted have demonstrated little to no growth. This reality has tempted far too many who have initially claimed Christ to exchange Christianity for counterfeit seed, which looks good but is not the result of what has been extended from the hand of God.

Jesus understood the danger of the seed of the kingdom when placed in the hands of those who would not scatter it appropriately. So He decided to image it in what is referred to as the Parable of the Sower.