(Mark 4:18-19)
For the last few years, as the CHRISTmas season has begun, I have taken time to make one of the e-mail edifications about “Christmas weeds”. Today, I do so again – longing that God would strengthen us to overcome the predicament in front of us so that this can be a spiritually fruitful season in our lives.
Honestly, the outcome is in doubt and perhaps more difficult than any other time of the year. Let me explain. In the Parable of the Sower, quoted above, Jesus pictures God’s Word like seed that is sown into hearts for the purpose of bearing a crop. Again, our hearts are pictured like a garden soil that is receiving seed for the purpose of producing a crop – the Bible is that seed.
In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus explains to us why seed that is good, that is sown can be unfruitful. One of the issues that effects the Seed…is weeds. Like a garden that is full of weeds, the weeds choke out the nourishment of the soil and the seed is unproductive. This is the picture for us…the abundant word of God that is being spoken and spread this season, choked out by weeds!
Jesus describes three things that hinder the Word impacting us.
Third – desires for other things. Other things grabbing our attention, the attention that should be focused on God. Wanting and desiring things.
Maybe it is just me – but when I look at these three things – worries, money and desires for things – I find myself thinking how those three things could almost be found in a definition of what Christmas is today. If you also find it to be so, then you now see the challenge before us. There are a bunch of weeds that would seek to choke out your heart this season and keep you hearing from and responding to God.
This is a once a week devotional e-mail sent out from Pastor Jim Suttle from Calvary Chapel of Roswell, NM
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