Good soil

 

GOOD SOIL

 

'The one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it.' (Matt. 13:23 NIV).

 

In Dr. Billy Graham's book, Facing Death and the Life Hereafter, he writes of the 1978 arrest of Velma Barfield for the murder of four people, including her mother and her fiance. A victim of both incest as a child and the abuse of prescription drugs as an adult, she admitted her guilt, was taken to prison and confined alone to a cell.

 

One night the guard tuned his radio to a gospel station. Velma heard the words of an evangelist and allowed Jesus Christ into her life. She had been in church and had heard the gospel, but this was the first time she understood that Jesus had died for her.

 

Velma's conversion was genuine. For six years on death row she ministered to many of her cell-mates. She wrote to Mrs. Billy Graham and a friendship developed between them. Mrs. Graham wrote to Velma, "God has turned your cell on death row into a most unusual pulpit. . . . As long as God has a ministry for you here, He will keep you here."

 

Velma was the first woman in twenty-two years to be executed in the United States. But she was a living example of the good soil in Jesus' parable. She brought forth fruit a hundredfold.

 

Life response: I will not just read my Bible, but read to understand it and apply it to my life.