your effort. If you make an effort, then in the end, paradoxically,
you will be successful, because God will receive your repentance,
and reward you, for some thirty, some sixty, some one hundred.
May it be that we all receive a hundred fold. May we all be like
the man who had five talents, and labored and increased it to ten,
and then our Lord gave him an infinite amount of grace.
we should try to learn from this parable? What is good ground?
Good ground has been tilled carefully, and dug, and the clods of
dirt have been broken up, and it has been finely sifted, and
fertilizer has been added to it, and it has been watered, and hedged
round about so that animals can not get in. It has been guarded, so
not one can steal the fruits it will produce. There is effort
involved in having good ground. It does not just Á-°happenÁ-?.
take care of it this year, and did not plant, and you can not even
TELL that it was good ground, and it was VERY good ground
after I had finished with it, but I didnÁ-?t take care of it, and so, it
reverted back. The same thing will happen to us. If we do not take
care of the seed that is planted within us, we will revert back to the
type of man we previously were, and we will allow the tares to
grow in us. They will choke us out. Even if there are not tares to
begin with Á-? the seeds of tares fly through the air, donÁ-?t they? So
do the demons. The tares can come into good ground at any time,
and they constantly must be plucked out and uprooted with great
care. It is very painful to tear out many tares by the way,
especially thorns and thistles, because they are sharp and they cut,
and make us bleed. Regardless, we must do this work, and tear out
these thorns and thistles if we are to be good ground, if indeed, we
have EVEN begun to be good ground!