Our neighbor’s tomato plants are bursting with ripened fruit. I love the aroma of tomatoes growing on the vine! It revives fond memories of my childhood, and it also brings to mind this column from a few years ago that is still so close to my heart … and actually yours. I hope it blesses you. On the small farm that I grew up on we did a lot of planting! I remember following my Father around as we weeded, checked for bugs and of course tasted some of the produce. Dad was especially fond of tomatoes. Every now and then he would pluck a good ripe one, pull out his pocket knife, and slice the juicy tomato in half. Then he’d fish around in his overalls for a small salt shaker that he carried to dust the tomato with extra flavor.
I love tomatoes also, but it wasn’t until just a few years ago that I learned the strong resemblance that a tomato has with our human hearts.
A tomato has four chambers and is red just like a heart. Tomato is loaded with Lycopine which is pure heart and blood food. And of course, a tomato carries seeds … and so does our hearts.
I would like to dig up some seeds of truths about our hearts and for the purpose of this column, I will compare the Bible to a “Farmer’s Almanac” of our hearts. Because the Bible declares that, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” Our hearts can think from the seeds (thoughts) that we meditate on day after day.
And these thoughts will yield a crop. That is when we begin to (taste) experience the produce we have planted. Just like planting a garden. Our hearts are the soil and they are not fickle. They will grow whatever seeds we plant in them. What crop do we want? Bitterness? Unforgiveness? Hate? Greed?
“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” “… looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.” “As in water face reflects face, So a man’s heart reveals the man.” But when we yield our hearts to the Lord Jesus and receive Him the Lord makes a promise …. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26 AMP.) Yet, it is still up to us to plant good seeds from the word of God in our hearts to reproduce/manifest the fruit of the Holy Spirit who is now living within us, “love, peace, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, self-control, faith.” Gal. 5:2
Did you know that in the early sixties ancient date palm seeds were discovered in a dry, sheltered container during excavations at Herod the Great’s palace in Israel. When the seeds were placed in the right enviromment one of the seeds sprouted and grew to over 2 meters tall. This seed was extinct for over 1800 years, yet was still able to not just survive but THRIVE. Many years ago after I was born again I failed to renew my mind in God’s word so my roots didn’t grow very deep in the Lord. I knew some truths and scriptures but for several years these seeds just lay dorment in my heart,
And even though Christ had changed me on the inside (spirit) I didn’t see much change on the outside, until I made a commitment to put God first in my life. Around the same time, I chose to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the word of God literally sprang to life in my heart.
Amazingly, by reading/immersing myself in God’s word over time those seeds, mixed with fertilizer (Christian fellowship- music- teachings), and watered by the power of the Holy Spirit, love started to grow and this produced a deeper relationship in Christ Jesus. And since faith works by love, I started seeing the crops of health, prosperity, restored relationships, emotional stability. And yes, miracles, signs and wonders begin to follow. (And fyi- God does not need a perfect vessel to flow through, just a willing one:) The seeds were there the whole time in the Bible, but thats where they lay, in the book, dormant, waiting for me to plant them in my own heart. I had to open the book and read it with my mind and my heart. Then “seed, time and harvest.” ” … For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
Jesus said, ” …If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.” So I pray that you will plant the word of God in your hearts so that you will experience a growth spurt in the coming months, even if it feels like the dead of Winter in our hearts, we can look forward to that Spring crop abounding in love, health, prosperity and hope in Christ Jesus. “But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, for with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
( During 1963-1965, excavations at Herod the Great‘s palace in Masada, Israel, revealed a cache of date palm seeds preserved in an ancient jar. They had experienced a very dry and sheltered environment for centuries. Radiocarbon dating at the University of Zurich confirmed the seeds dated from between 155 BCE to 64 CE. The seeds were held in storage for 40 years at Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, until in 2005, the seeds were pretreated in a fertilizer and hormone-rich solution. Three of the seeds were subsequently planted at Kibbutz Ketura in the Arabah desert in southern Israel.[7] Eight weeks later one of the seeds had sprouted, and by June 2008, the tree had nearly a dozen fronds and was nearly 1.4 m (4 ft) tall. By the summer of 2010, the sapling stood about 2 meters tall.The plant was nicknamed “Methuselah,” after the longest-lived person in the Bible. Methuselah is remarkable in being the oldest known tree seed successfully germinated, and also in being the only living representative of the Judean date palm, a tree extinct for over 1800 years, which was once a major food and export crop in ancient Judea).
Romans 10:8-10, John 7:37-38; 14:1, Proverbs 6:14,1Samuel16:7Proverbs 23:7, Proverbs 27:19Jeremiah 17:9-10, Ezekiel 11:19-20, Col. 3:23, Psalm 7:9, Mal. 4:6, Luke 21:26, Phil 4:7, Col. 3:15, Heb. 12:15, Matt. 12:34
