“Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. “The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds! Where did they come from?’ “‘An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed. “‘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 13:24-30 (NLT)

There comes a time on our journey that we must begin to take notice of what is growing in our lives. Much like the parable mentioned above, we must be keen enough to recognize the distractions that come our way to keep us from producing the harvest of discipline we seek.

Jesus tells this story to his disciples in order to paint a picture of the kingdom of God. In the example we find a war between two worlds. On one hand, the sower who represents God planting good seeds. On the other hand, there is Satan, the enemy sowing tares among the wheat.

Take a moment and think about how often you experienced God working in your life. Everything you set out to do was going according to plan, then all of a sudden here comes opposition to set you off course. Because of human nature, we panic and want to let it all go.  However, Jesus shows what an experienced gardener does when faced with unfavorable circumstances.

First of all, He recognizes it is an enemy that did this. He recognizes the attack came because of what He was doing. He recognized that the attack was on the harvest. It was the keenness of the gardener that led to the decision to let the tares grow with the wheat.

He explained to his workers that at the time of the harvest the separation would take place. Instead of destroying the integrity of the future harvest, He paid close attention to it, recognizing what was more important. We should do the same when it comes to our lives. Rather than giving up when we encounter challenges, or reacting too quickly, we need to take inventory of what we are dealing with. We can’t allow what others think we should do to influence our decisions. We need to be led by the Lord.

You must be mindful not to allow the tactics of the enemy to get you so overwhelmed that you lose sight of the progress you have made. This is not the time to get distracted. This is not the time to allow yourself to go off course. Maintain your focus.

The harvest you have been working towards will produce good in your life, but in that time you may have to go back and do some separating. Whatever weeds or distractions, you have allowed to come into your live through relationships, bad habits, character issues, etc. will now have to be addressed.

If you continue to allow these issues to grow they will only take over in your time of harvest. Be like that experienced gardener protect your harvest through wisdom, knowledge and understanding about the situation at hand. In order to do that, it will take much prayer and fellowship with the Father. He knows what is best, trust His guidance.

By Mary Pinckney
used by permission

FURTHER READING

Is it Your Planting Season?

Seed Planters

Looking for a Bumper Crop?

The post Be a Gardener appeared first on Thoughts About God.

“Sluggards do not plow in season; so at harvest time they look but find nothing.” Proverbs 20:4

Recently this verse popped out to me as I read my Bible. I stopped and pondered it. “Am I a sluggard?” I asked. I am certainly not a lazy person. So I googled the definition. “Slow”, it said. Hmmm. I can procrastinate more than I care to admit.

Here God was saying that if one is slow to plant in planting season, the harvest will simply not be there. God’s Spirit was speaking to my spirit. I have some opportunities before me in my writing that I am simply dragging my feet on. Yes, I’m busy. But when gardening season arrives I leave the other work in order to plant before it is too late and I miss the rains and the harvest.

I need to do that now with my opportunities.

What opportunity, relationship, project, ministry or other “seeds” has God put in your pocket waiting to be planted? Get busy. Re-organize your priorities. The planting season is short. Harvest time will come and you don’t want empty hands and missed opportunities. Wrap your fingers around those God given seeds, till up the ground and get to work with the harvest in mind.

Father God, Thank you that You speak to me when I pause to listen. Please help me to recognize the seeds You have given me. Please help me to plan my days with “garden time” in mind. Water these seeds with Your wisdom and inspiration and with Your blessing. May I not be empty handed in harvest time. Thank you Lord, for Your encouragement. I pray this in Jesus’ strong name, amen.

Take Action: What seeds has God given you? How will you invest them?

By Gail Rodgers
used by permission

FURTHER READING

Seed Planters by Shelaine Strom

Seed Planter by Fab Batsakis

Be a Gardener by Mary Pinckney

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The post Is it Your Planting Season? appeared first on Thoughts About God.

“The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results.” James 5:16

A branch is a growth of the vine, produced to bear fruit. It has only one purpose: that through it the vine may bear and ripen its fruit.  As the vine lives to produce the sap that makes the grape, so the branch receives that sap and bears the grape.  Its work is to serve the vine so that, through the branch, the vine may do
its work.

The believer, the branch of Christ the heavenly Vine, is to live exclusively so Christ may bear fruit through him.  A true Christian is to be devoted to the work of bearing fruit to the glory of God.

With our life abiding in Him, and His words abiding and ruling in our heart, there will be grace to pray as we should and faith to receive whatever we ask.

The promises of our Lord’s farewell discourse appear to us too large to be taken literally.  We rationalize them to meet our human ideas of what we think they ought to be.  We separate them from the life of devotion to Christ’s service for which they were given.

God’s covenant is: give all and take all. One who is willing to be nothing but a branch of Christ, the Vine, will receive liberty to claim Christ’s riches in all their fullness and the wisdom and humility to use them properly.

By Andrew Murray

From: ‘Teach Me to Pray’
Used by permission.

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