Keys to Maturity1Pet 2:2 2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: 3 If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Desire -: lust, intense longing, crave, to pursue with love, to long after, harbour forbidden desireThe Word of God clearly reveals that as you think in your heart, so are you.For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.Proverbs 23:7The parable of the Sower Matt 13, Luke 8Mark 4:14 is the key to this entire parable:The sower soweth the word.Luke 8:11 communicates it this way:Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.The seed being sown is the Word of God. You cannot cheat the system of seedtime and harvestThe whole kingdom of Godthe Christian life, your victory, your success as a believeris as simple as taking the Word of God and sowing it in your heart. If you will just cooperate and let the Word of God germinate, you will change effortlessly.In the natural realm, we'd call anyone "crazy" who expects a garden to grow without tilling the ground, planting the seeds, or watering the seeds. If you didn't do any of these necessary things to grow a garden, you wouldn't be surprised when a garden doesn't grow up your life. Yet in the spiritual realm, this happens constantly.People who never planted any seeds are disappointed and surprised that they don't have a garden. They wonder, Why am I not healed? Why haven't I been prospered? Why hasn't God answered this prayer? Why are my relationships falling apart? Why can't I hold down a job?Why is it nothing in my life ever seems to work? They've been praying and asking God for all of these things, but they haven't taken His Word and the promises therein and sown those truths in their life.The ground is your heart.. 4 different types of hearts.INCORRUPTIBLE - God's Word is an incorruptible seed.Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.1 Peter 1:23There is nothing wrong with the seed. 1. The Lord describes the first type of soil in Mark 4:15, saying:These are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.Once the Word is sown on this type of soil, the devil comes immediately to steal the seed that was planted in your heart.Matthew 13:18-19 says:Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.Matthew stated this just a little differently than Mark. The wayside refers to a place where many people have walked. In other words, the dirt has been packed down and compacted. Instead of being able to sink into the ground, germinate, and take root, the seed just laid on the surface. Just like a bird will come and eat seeds thrown on hard-packed ground, so Satan immediately steals the Word from people who don't get God's Word down on the inside of them. If the Word doesn't penetrate and get down inside a person's heart, the devil comes immediately and steals that Word from them. Out of the four different types of people that the Lord described in this parable, this is the only group that Satan had total access to. The devil could just steal the Word away from this first type of person.Notice what verse 19 reveals:When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart.1. Understand the wordUnderstand - to put together, that is, (mentally) to comprehend; to put (as it were) the perception with the thing perceived.