3 NOV 23 Friday: A Closer Walk Devotional
“Should we pull out the weeds? They asked. No, he replied, you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds, tie them into bundles, and burn them, and to put the wheat in the barn.” Matthew 13:28-30
Growing up in Florida, I was introduced to yardwork at an early age. The baton of cutting the yard was handed off to me when my brother left home to be on his own. I was given instructions on how to use the mower, do maintenance, and best practices to keep it running for a long time. I actually like cutting the lawn and found it to be a good stress reliever. The one thing I didn’t like was pulling weeds.
One thing you need to know about Florida is weeds are the dominant plant and overrun a healthy lawn at any given moment. You can spend hours pulling weeds and not put a dent in it. When you put down weed and feed, you think the manufacturer has sabotaged you as weeds multiplied even more. When you came to the parable of the wheat and weeds (tares), I could immediately relate to the laborers who were angry about weeds.
Jesus was using this struggle that was common to farmers to relate a spiritual truth. The type of weed is called a tare and it looks identical to real wheat. A tare only looks like the real thing, but has no fruit and is of no value to the farmer. Tares are the people who reject the gospel in their hearts but remain in the world as a false convert. On the surface they are believers, but God knows who belongs to him. It is the painful reality that God only reveals the truth to his own.
The question is posed, do we pull the weeds? He said, no. Oh, if I had read this as a teenager, I’d present this to my Dad as an objection to weed pulling. You will damage the real believer if you remove the fake believer. Believers are here to influence unbelievers until they too become believers. Jesus will deal with that situation directly by saving or separating them.
What do you do with fake Christians or false converts?
Reading Plan: Psalm 40, 54; Neh. 2:1-20; Rev. 6:12-7:4; Matt. 13:24-30
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