Even the best person can lose their
job, get involved in an accident, or get cancer. There is no
way to prevent these things. Instead, we need to grow deep
roots that will keep these things from being as damaging as
they can be.
There are lots of people who are
surface Christians. They show up for church every other
Sunday. They don’t worry much about reading their Bible or
praying until they want something from God. They’ll do as
little as possible just so long as they fit in and the
pastor doesn’t start calling to ask how they’ve been and
question why he hasn’t seen them in the past month.
I hesitate to really call these people
Christians however. They may say the right things. They know
all the Sunday school answers: God, Jesus, the Bible (the
answers to most Sunday school questions). They may even be
able to explain salvation to you. But when you watch these
people for any length of time, it’s obviously that there is
no walk with the Lord.
I don’t know what the latest numbers
are but let’s say that there are 220 million people in the
United States. Of them 75% claim to be Christians. However,
not even at Christmas and Easter are there 165 million
people in church. Many of these people are shallow soil.
Shallow soil is possibly the hardest
to work with. These people are happy where they are. They
think they know God. They think that anyone more devoted to
church than they are is “ultra conservative” or a Bible nut.
They are most happy when left alone and not prodded to do
anything more.
However, there is hope. People who are
shallow soil most often believe in the Bible and believe
that it has relevance to real life. You can use the Bible to
remind them about what they actually believe. Use passages
like 2 Tim 2:15 “Study to show yourself approved unto God.”
Or 2 Pet 3:18 “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”
Sharing God’s plan of salvation isn’t
out of order either. Nine times out of ten a person who is
shallow soil will proclaim that they are already a
Christian. But if they honestly believe that they are a
sinner and that Christ died and rose to forgive them of
their sins there should be more of a life change than what
is apparent.
In either case, there is no evidence
of the fruit of the Spirit. Shallow soil produces no fruit.
People who are shallow soil should be exhorted to show
evidence of the fruit of the Spirit and the other fruit
mentioned earlier.
Another way to witness to a person who
is shallow soil is by way of an unpleasant crash course.
Numerous times it takes an illness or some sort of tragedy
to get someone’s attention and bring them to church. At that
point you need to encourage that person and biblically feed
them as much as possible so that when the storm is over they
do not desir to be a shallow Christian any longer.
When a storm strikes, a plant can
quickly be blown over, uprooted, and killed. Sometimes it
can be nurtured back to health it is only damaged. In the
event of a drought we can water the plant and do what we can
to keep the plant alive until the drought is over.
Unfortunately, sometimes a plant won’t make it even though
we water it because the roots simply aren’t deep enough.
Regardless, for a person who is shallow soil we should
nurture them the best we can when trouble arises, hoping
that they will come out stronger and will not face the same
situation again.
Next Section -
Pulling Out Weeds
