Insights from Matt 13:24-43

"Let them both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn." (Matthew 13:30)
This morning, this was the parable we talked about. It was great to hear the insights and really dig into this. So I thought I would share them with you. As it is explained later in the chapter, the field is the world, the sower is God, the wheat is those that are sons of the Kingdom and the tares (or weeds) are those that are the sons of the evil one. If you describe tares more fully you will understand even more, for tares are actually weeds that look like wheat on the outside. The only time that you can tell the difference is at harvest time. For then you see that the tares have not produced a good crop of grain, in essence they have not produced "fruit". Man, you get so much out of the Word...it's unfathomable. There are so many times that we judge by the outward appearance...we label, we put people in our box and then when they step outside of the box we judge, we make up rules that we think everyone else should follow, yet these rules could very possibly not be Biblically based, just our own interpretation for our lives. But all in all, this could sidestep us from a true relationship with God. We become so focused on the outward that we forget about the inward...the heart and where the heart truly is. Is it focused on checking our boxes or on sweet communion with God? Did Christ die for us so that we could go on living with our boxes or so that we could have a direct connection to the Father? And then there is the fact that He doesn't want the tares taken out of the wheat until the harvest time. Why? Well, if you uproot the weed, you will most likely uproot the wheat as well. The roots are so intertwined that it is impossible to take one out and not the other. And so if you pull a believer out of the world, what happens to everyone else around them? Well my guess is that it's one less person they will see the Gospel through, one less time they will hear the workings of God and this is not good. People need to hear the truth! They need to hear that the Father loves them through all of their junk. They need to hear that He will always love them. They need to hear that He will always be there even when it seems that everything else is falling apart. They need to hear that they don't need to be perfect to come to Him. That's why He came and died and rose again, so that we could come and die to our flesh and rise in Him and be perfected through Him. There's lots more to this parable. You should read it and check it out. It's a good one. So my challenge to you this week is that you check your inward appearance. Is it right with God? Is it following hard after Him?