Breaking Up Your Fallow Ground
(week 48/08)
Olubi Johnson
Hosea 10:12 MKJV Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground. For it is time to seek Jehovah, until He comes and rains righteousness on you.
Here the scripture tells us to ‘break up our fallow ground’ so that we can sow in righteousness, reap in mercy by receiving the ‘rain of righteousness’.
What do these symbolic terms mean?
Our ‘fallow ground’ is our uncultivated soul: wills that are still stubborn, minds not renewed and not enlightened by revelation knowledge and emotions not dominated by the fruit of the spirit.
Consequently the Word of God that is sown on this fallow ground does not bear fruit. For instance if you put a seed on a concrete floor and water it daily diligently it will not bear fruit because the seed has not been sown in fertile soil. You will have to break up the cement floor and dig until you hit fertile soil in which you will now plant the seed, which when properly watered and guarded from weeds will bring forth fruit. Similarly, our souls need to be ‘broken up’ and ‘cultivated’.
How is this done? By the power of the Holy Spirit:
Romans 8:26-29 MKJV Likewise the Spirit also helps our infirmities. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. (27) And He searching the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. (28) And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (29) For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, for Him to be the First-born among many brothers.
Here Paul shows us that as we pray in the Spirit with tongues (unknown supernatural languages) and deep groanings (like the sounds made when a woman is in travail giving birth: pushing out the baby from the birth canal) we are pushing out the power of God from spirits into our souls to ‘break up’ the ‘fallow ground’ and so cause the Christ nature to be ‘formed’ in our souls: mind, will and emotions. This is what transforms us or makes from just being ‘children’ to becoming ‘sons’ of God, just like a caterpillar metamorphoses into a butterfly.
Galatians 4:19 MKJV My children, for whom I again travail until Christ should be formed in you
Isaiah 66:8 MKJV Who has heard a thing like this? Who has seen things like these? Will the earth be brought forth in one day? Or will a nation be born at once? For Zion travailed and also brought forth her sons.
Colossians 4:12 MKJV Epaphras greets you, he being of you, a servant of Christ, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.
In particular, the Holy Spirit through this intercession in the spirit breaks the stubbornness of the human will:
Leviticus 26:19 And I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heaven like iron and your earth like bronze. He enlightens the mind with spiritual knowledge, understanding and wisdom:
2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined into our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1:9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
Ephesians 1:17-18 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: (18) The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
He will empower in the soul the fruit of the Spirit to totally dominate the lusts of the flesh, lusts of the eyes and the pride of life:
1 John 4:4 You are of God, little children, and you have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
1 John 2:16 because all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
Galatians 5:16-24 NIV 16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. 19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.
So as we pray regularly with tongues and groaning as a daily, weekly and monthly habit, over time our ‘fallow ground’ will be ‘broken up’ and the seed of God’s Word which we plant and water daily by hearing, reading, speaking and practicing the Word will begin to bring forth much fruit in us!
In our article next week we will see that this kind of praying provides ‘underground irrigation’ for our souls causing them to become and remain fruitful ground and this is why and how Jesus prayed when He was here on earth.
