Words from the Lord are coming that will challenge our assumptions. These words will not challenge the exclusivity of salvation found in Jesus Christ or the historic mission of the Church. They will challenge our assumptions about how the Lord will work as the end of time approaches.

When the Lord speaks a strong and challenging word that disrupts our current understanding it can fall into a place we would define as hard ground. That hardness refers to our willingness to change and become moldable in God’s hands. A hindering hardness can be formed by sin, assumption, or ignorance. Before any spiritual breakthrough happens, the word of the Lord must first fall on those hard places and begin to break up our hardened interpretation. This breakup happens in our minds. This breakup of our thinking is not enjoyable or welcomed by those living a life hardened to God’s truth.

When Jesus spoke the parable of the seed, He said, “The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message about the Kingdom and don’t understand it. Then the evil one comes and snatches away the seed that was planted in their hearts.”  (Matthew 13:19). The seed Jesus was referencing was the message of the Gospel. While the parable of the seed addresses the message of the Gospel, it does reveal a larger truth. Whatever the Lord is saying must be received by an open and fertile heart or the seed’s potential will be exposed by our hardness and snatched away.

When the Lord offers His truth, He will challenge the very things we thought were fixed and unchangeable, even our most cherished theologies and determinations formed by human assumption. God’s words, even the difficult ones, are a map that will lead us deeper into His heart. These life-altering revelations can radically adjust our current understanding of faith and our predictions about the future.

God does His greatest and most impacting works when they come as a surprise to our logic and our resulting assumptions. The pride we exhibit in that place hardens us making us unresponsive to change when a deeper level of truth appears. If we have an open heart, God can speak things to us that will take us deeper into His truth and align us with the next surprising work of God if our hearts have remained open to the sound of His voice.