LIVING WITH THE WEEDS

In my garden, amidst the flowers, are weeds. Some look a lot like my flowers.

Even though I don’t make any great effort to water or feed them, they do fine. In fact, sometimes, it seems they even have less disease and pests than the flowers.

I love how God’s Word uses every day things to explain spiritual truth. God uses wheat and tares, both similar in appearance, to illustrate that people without Christ can and do prosper.

He created everything for “us” to enjoy. It is a personal choice whether ‘we’ serve God or not; we all are subject to the blessings and the sufferings that are a part of life.

There are people who have no interest in the things of God, yet, their life is great. Be reminded that they also suffer as we do, but satan only points out their blessings, not their trials to us. In this life, there will be both blessing and struggle whether we serve Christ or not. (John 16:33)

God knows that it’s hard for us to understand why families who do not include Christ in their lives often experience the same victories as Christian homes do. Our Lord also has a day coming that those differences and the distinction between the world and God’s children will be clearly seen. (Malachi 3:13-18)

Satan is always ready to point the ‘blessings of godlessness’ out to us. He tells us ‘they’ go to the lake on Sunday morning while we go to church. With haughty words, satan points out that “they” have money to play when we struggle to write out our tithe check.

Being Christian is about a relationship we have with Christ. No other god wants a relationship with us. No other god says they want us to be as children; living without God is living as an orphan.

God does bless His children and He loves it when we realize it is Him that sends good things into our lives. Those living without Christ often benefit from the good things God created for His children; but the surface blessings are all they have.

As with the wheat and the tares; there will come a day when both saint and sinner stands before the Lord. On that day there will be a great difference between those that serve God and those who don’t.

(Matthew 13:30) Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time, I will tell the harvesters, ‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned, then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’

Prayer: Father, forgive me for grumbling and complaining; your Word tells me that both good and bad are simply parts of life. Help me to have a tender heart and a listening ear to your Spirit so I have directions through the hard parts. Thank you.

Scriptural References:

John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Malachi 3:13-18 “You have spoken arrogantly against me,” says the Lord.“Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’ “You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it.’”

Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. “On the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty, “they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.