Yesterday, as I finished reading through the book of Mark, the Holy Spirit showed me another area of fallow ground–man-pleaser!

I was a man pleaser. I understand this one very well. I was a preacher’s kid and felt the expectations of others. I tried to please them.

You know what happened? I lost my identity in trying to be someone that I wasn’t. I stood in my front room in 1967 and said, ‘Lord, who am I? I have to be this for this person, and that for that person, but who am I?’

Paul had the right understanding. Ephesians 6:6 says, “Not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” Colossians 3:23 says, “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.”

Galatians 1:10 says, “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.”

Whatever we do to please men, rather than the Lord, will be as a weed seed dropped upon fallow ground. Pilate was a prime example.

Jesus stood silent before Pilate as the chief priests falsely accused Him. Speaking of Pilate, Mark 15:10 says, “For he knew that the chief priests had handed Him over because of envy.”

The clincher profile of a man pleaser is stated in verse 15. “So Pilate, wanting to gratify the crowd, released Barabbas to them; and he delivered Jesus, after he had scourged Him, to be crucified.”

We have to turn from Jesus in order to please man. It is a fleshly action that denies the Lord instead of our flesh. May the Lord open our eyes to discern this evil vice so that we don’t sow anymore weed seeds of self!

Here is a very subtle work of the enemy to take our worship from the Lord. I hope that these posts have helped you discern some fallow ground in your own heart that needs to be plowed up and replanted with life-giving seeds of truth.

Heart Idols And Lip Service
Anything that takes priority over the Lord is a heart idol. Idols contaminate our bodies which are His temple. Matthew 15:8 says, “These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.”

We may say that we love the Lord, yet if our time, money, or energy is invested into fleshly pursuits instead of His kingdom, we are lying to ourselves.

1 John 1:6 says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” Chapter 2 verse 4 says, “He who says, I know Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”

The Lord desires to reveal Himself to those who walk in His ways. He is magnificent in His attributes. He designed us to be a parker of His nature.

John 14:21 says, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” What a great promise!

I want to summarize this chapter on discerning what causes us to have fallow ground. We have seen many areas. Each one is sin. Though we may sin against others, ultimately our sin is against God.

Proverbs 13:15 uses explicit words to help us see how barren a life of sin is. In the Amplified it says, “Good understanding wins favor, but the way of the transgressor is hard (like the barren, dry soil or the impassible swamp).”

Fallow ground allows weed seeds to exponentially flourish in our hearts. Thoughts of despair multiply as they spiral down until we become overwhelmed.

Do you wonder at how many areas can become fallow ground? Here are two more very subtle yet prominent players.

Pronouncements
A pronouncement is an emphatic negative statement against the character of a person. It is usually spoken in anger. It impacts and crushes the spirit. It can cause the person to shrink back and wilt in defeat.

Jesus spoke something like a pronouncement over the fig tree. Matthew 21:18-19 says, “…He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves, and said to it, Let no fruit grow on you ever again. Immediately the fig tree withered away.”

Here are a few pronouncement examples. “You will never amount to anything, you never do anything right.” The death words of those two pronouncements were spewed out in a moment of frustration and anger. However they had an immediate impact on the heart of the receiver.

We often unknowingly speak pronouncements over ourselves. They come from hurts that are buried in our heart. Have you ever said something like, “I can’t do anything right” when you fail to meet your expectations in a new project? Maybe you have pronounced death words over your circumstances or your own body.

The power of a pronouncement spoken over us, or that which we have spoken over ourselves can be broken. True heart forgiveness releases us to live in the freedom we were designed to live in.

Contempt
Contempt is a radical deflection to hide the hurts we have buried. If anyone comes close to discovering them, we treat them with disdain, disrespect, or an insolent attitude. It is in hopes that they will back away.

Michal, King David’s wife was contemptuous. At the beginning she loved David. Then her father gave her to another man. David brought her back to himself. You can read the whole narrative in 2 Samuel 6.

David danced before the Lord with all his might, as the ark was brought into the City of David. When he returned home, Michal greeted him with scathing words from a contemptuous heart. Verse 23 says, “Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death.”

Contempt inhibits intimacy. We block others. Paul addressed the Corinthians over this issue. 2 Corinthians 6:1-2 says, “O Corinthians! We have spoken openly to you, our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections.”

We are created for intimate communion with the Lord. It is a Heart-to-heart fellowship. Without it, we are barren. John 15:5 Amplified says, “I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit. However, apart from Me (cut off from vital union with Me) you can do nothing.”

The Lord never moves away from us. It is us moving away from Him because our heart is walled off from others. Walls block both ways.

The enemy of our soul hates us. He does anything to keep us eating the sterile fruit from our fallow ground. The Holy Spirit continually brings God’s word before us to lead us into truth, and to help us discern our areas of entrapment. Here are three more.

Self-Protection
Self-protection is a lie. We do not have any control over our circumstances, nor people. We cannot protect our heart from being hurt again. Self-protection deceptively usurps the Lord’s role as our Protector.

David spoke of his relationship with the Lord in Psalm 18. Though he was surrounded by his enemies, his confidence was in the Lord alone. Listen to his words.

Verse 1-2 says, “I will love You, O Lord my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”

Self-Hatred And Self-Rejection
These two categories fit together. They usually feed off of one another. Self-hatred and self-rejection are based on lies propagated by the enemy. He hates us because we are made in the image of God. If he can get us to hate what God has created, then he will gain ground in our lives.

Self-hatred and self-rejection are very powerful inner strongholds that the enemy has set up to defeat us. Let me start with this question: what do you NOT accept about yourself? Your answer will help you see the need to refocus on God’s perfect design for you.

Jeremiah 1:5 is a great verse. It says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you…” The Lord made you just as He pictured your whole life long before you were conceived. Ephesians 1:4 says that He chose you before He created the foundations of the world.

The above two verses are two tools that will break up this fallow ground in your heart. You are loved. You are chosen. Let His truth set you free from the lies you have believed against yourself.

Here are three more areas that allow the weed seeds to propagate in the fallow ground of our hearts—triplet lies seeded to undermine our faith.

Doubt
Where does doubt come from? You read about it a few sections before—planted lies. They were unsuspectedly planted to develop into well established lies that would hinder our faith. Therefore when we set our heart to believe, the lies seep into our thought processes.

Thoughts of doubt are designed to assail and undermine our faith. Proverbs 25:19 says, “Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a bad tooth and a foot out of joint.” Dialoguing with thoughts of doubt will weaken our faith so we cannot stand in the face of trouble.

James 1:6-8 says, “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

Mark 11:21 says, “…Have faith in God.” The enemy of our soul knows that without faith we cannot please God. Therefore he works his wiles to undermine and destroy our faith.

Fear
2 Timothy 1:7 says that fear is a spirit. It comes against us to capsize our faith. It puts our focus on some thing, someone, or our impossible circumstances. The bottom line is, it is a diversion or a distraction. Fear is like doubt, in that it causes us to shrink back when God has called us to walk forward.

Fear comes when we fail to acknowledge the Lord is with us. Here is a great verse to hold onto when you feel fearful. Psalm 56:3 says, “Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.” Trusting in the Lord in the face of the impossible will strengthen us to stand.

Unbelief
Matthew 13:58 says, “Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” An unbelieving heart blocks the work of the Holy Spirit to bring inner transformation.

Jesus addressed Nicodemus’ unbelief. John 3:3-4 says, “…Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to Him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

Nicodemus did not comprehend what Jesus was saying because he was looking for a natural explanation to something that is supernatural.

These next two areas of fallow ground work in tandem. Both are satan’s goal to keep us from growing in our faith and victoriously overcoming his FLAK tactics.

Self-Deception
A person who is deceived doesn’t recognize they are trapped. We can liken it to a blind spot. Everyone else can see it but the one who has it.

It is useless to try to convince a deceived person with logic or human persuasion. The greatest tool is truth. When the bank trains a new teller, they give them real money. They want them to know what it looks like, feels like, and to be able to discern the true from the false.

As we intentionally read God’s word daily, it will reveal the deception we live in. Truth that we know experientially has the power to set us free. It would be pointless and futile to study lies. It is fruitful and life-changing to study truth as revealed in God’s word, then apply it to our lives. Truth hidden in our heart will be like a governor to keep us from falling for the lies of the enemy.

Hardness
The above section talked about self-deception. Here is how it happens. Hebrews 3:12-13 says, “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called, Today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.”

Another product of a hard heart results in spiritual blindness and deafness. A heart hardened through hidden sin does not discern.

Right after Jesus had fed about five thousand men with five loaves and two fish, He sent His disciples away. They encountered a wind. Jesus went to them and rebuked the wind and it ceased.

Mark 6:51 says, “…And they were greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure, and marveled.” Verse 52 in the Amplified says, “For they failed to consider or understand (the teaching and meaning of the miracle of) the loaves; (in fact) their hearts had grown callous (had become dull and had lost the power of understanding).”

The One who multiplied the food, was the same One who rebuked the wind. Yet they could not connect the two miracles as His ability to provide for all their needs.

When we continually resist the power of the Holy Spirit, we become insensitive and unresponsive. Unbelief blocks our perception and makes our heart calloused. We miss what the Holy Spirit wanted to teach us.

Here are two more very prominent areas that create fallow ground in our hearts. Remember: Mark 4:19 says that the desires for other things creep in, and satan’s prime weapons are his fiery dart-lies.

Fleshly Desires
When our fleshly desires rule our heart choices, they will keep us from submitting to the desires of the Holy Spirit. James 4:5 says, “Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?”

Walking in our flesh will yield nothing that can sustain us in our trails. We will bear no fruit that will glorify the Lord because our flesh leads us into a barren wasteland.

John 6:63 says, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are Spirit, and they are life.”

Lies Of The Enemy
Fiery dart-lies are lobbed at us continually. If satan can get us to believe his lies, then he can control our lives from within. Through his planted lies, he builds inner strongholds designed to keep us in bondage.

Jesus’ truth about satan is found in John 8:44. It says, “…there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”

Anything that comes into your mind that is negative in nature, will likely come in the first person. You may be doing something mundane that doesn’t require thought. Seemingly from out of nowhere this thought against another floats into your mind. Your greatest defense is to not give it another thought.

You have to discern where the thought is coming from. Is it building you up or tearing you down. Does the thought align with God’s word about you? If not, it is a lie.

Here are two more tell tale signs of fallow ground in our heart. These are areas that are not submitted to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

Pride
Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” The higher we lift ourselves up in pride, the harder we will fall from God’s grace in our lives.

James 4:6 says, “But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Pride deceives us into thinking that we are something that we aren’t. Pride leads us into hypocrisy.

Proverbs 8:13 says, “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate.”

The opposite of pride is humility. If you have fallen because of pride, take heed to James 4:10. It says, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

A proud person lives in a dry desert of their own making. It is fallow ground that will only produce the weed seeds of self-effort.

Judgmental Or Critical Spirit
Matthew 7:1-2 says, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”

It is foolish for us to critically assess another by what we think they are thinking or feeling. Only the Lord knows the thoughts and intentions of our heart. 2 Corinthians 5:16 says, “Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh…” Why? Our flesh opposes God’s way, neither can it rightly discern.

Here is another chapter in my book from Matthew. Fallow ground, or ground that has not been cultivated still bears fruit. I once had a back field that was very prolific in weeds. One weed produced countless weed seeds. I could mow down the weeds and all looked fine in the dormant season. Once the rains came, it was a veritable plethora of weeds. Not only that, the flower beds close to my house were contaminated with weeds!

Our heart can be filled with weed-seeds-thoughts, and yet we may live as though we have it altogether. However, when we are stressed, our goals our blocked, or we face the impossible, the fruit of our weed seeds surfaces as fleshly reactions. Let’s identify some of the weeds growing in the fallow ground of our heart.

Unforgiveness
Unforgiveness affects every aspect of our lives. It is a hidden sin that leads us into hardness of heart and self-deception. Until it is confessed and repented of, it will continue to be a sterile, non fruit-bearing ground in our heart that propagates sinful thoughts.

Hidden Sin
Proverbs 28:13 says, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” Psalm 66:18 says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear.”

Hidden sin can affect us physically. David expressed that in Psalm 31. Verse 9-10 says, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble; my eye wastes away with grief, yes, my soul and my body! For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away.”

I like to think of the word ‘verdant’ as something that is lush, rich, flourishing, green, fruitful, and thriving. Is that how your heart is in your relationship with the Lord?

Psalm 92:12-15 is how I want my life to be. It says, “The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing, To declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

Our trials hone our heart. They remove the superfluous so that we can thrive. I want to say with the writer of Psalm 119:10, “With my whole heart I have sought You; oh, let me not wander from Your commandments.”

Verdant verses uncultivated and barren. What a contrast! As we walk in His promises and apply His truths, we are walking through verdant fields, singing praises to Him who alone is worthy!

Father, I thank You for choosing each one of us. Thank You for Your unconditional love that will never be removed no matter what our situation is.

Thank You for each one who has read this blog. May their lives be a verdant field that bears You much fruit. May You be continually glorified through their lives. I ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.