Devotionals by Jill Briscoe

“The rocky soil represents those who hear the message with joy. But like young plants in such soil, their roots don’t go very deep. They believe for a while, but they wilt when the hot winds of testing blow.” - Luke 8:13

When the going gets tough, the tough get going,” so they say. Yet those who do not let the seed of the Word of God take root in their lives, will get going, but not be able to keep going when the tough times come!

“Nobody told me my Christianity would cause such trouble at home,” complained a teenager accusingly. But Jesus was always warning people about the costliness of being his disciples (Luke 14:26-33).

It’s all very well to get worked up at a meeting or a conference and to go home on a spiritual high. But ahead is Monday morning, or a husband who doesn’t want anything to do with your Christ, or maybe a hostile teenager who will laugh at you. What happens when you offend your friends with the great glad news of your conversion? If your life is filled with rocks, and there has been little attempt to cultivate and pull out the weeds and the stones, your profession of faith will never stand up to opposition.

Jesus says his seed will test us and find us wanting if we are all noise and no fruit. When a rootless believer feels the hot sun and burning winds of rejection, he will soon wither away. Let us grow roots downward, so we can bear fruit upward!

For Further Study: Luke 8:1-18

Excerpted from The One Year Devotions for Women, Copyright ©2000 by Jill Briscoe. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

For more from Jill Briscoe, please visit TellingtheTruth.org.

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