Mark 4:15-20 NIV “Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”” https://bible.com/bible/111/mrk.4.15-20.NIV
While God wants everyone reconciled to Him so that they can live forever with Him, only 25% of people will respond properly to His demands that allow us to be reconciled to God. Half of the people who believe in God, who accept His coming to earth as Savior in Jesus, fail to live forever with God because of pressures without or competing desires within. These people fear men when evil men malign and persecute them for believing and following Jesus, causing them to abandon their allegiance to Jesus. These people do not love God first, most evidenced by their endless pursuit of peace, pleasure, or prestige to make their lives more pleasurable, and so they deny God by their devotions and actions. The true follower of Jesus, the person we know and who themselves know is rightly reconciled to God, bears fruit for God. This fruit involves reproducing the life of Christ within themselves and out in the world. Like the half that ultimately rejects God from fears without or other loves within, the true disciple repents and becomes like Jesus, inwardly bearing the fruit of the Spirit while outwardly working to seek and save the lost and teach obedience to the saved, making disciples of all people everywhere to see God’s kingdom come and His will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The good soil produces fruit. The bad soil remains as it was since it first believed. The good soil yields evidence of the seed that was planted. The bad soil yields no such evidence of good seed planted. We can measure ourselves by the fruit we produce. God will do this as well on that day we meet Him face to face, and He either rewards us for our fruit or condemns us for having none.
