Jan 18, 2017 – Matt 13
The seed among thorns
is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the
deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. Matt 13:22
You can either have
daily worries or eternal wisdom, but you can’t have both.
Some of the most common stories are just worth
repeating. One of those stories is about
how farmers eliminate the monkey problem in their orchards, but creating a trap
using a jar & a banana. The greedy
monkey will reach his hand in the jar and grab the banana, only to find that
the jar opening is too small to bring their hand out with the banana. Instead of letting go of the fruit, the
monkey continues to hold onto the prized fruit, leaving itself trapped by their
greed. Wisdom would let go of the banana
and pursue other fruit, but greed & worry keeps hold of the banana!
When Jesus taught the parable of the seed, He was speaking
to farmers who dealt with thorns every year.
Trying to eliminate the thorns in their fields was very tedious, and
always damaged the plant. Letting the
thorns grow would eliminate the harvest.
So they would burn a field to remove all the thorns, then reuse the
field with fresh seed. Farmers already
knew that trying to manage the thorns was useless … they needed to remove them
as problems.
That is a principle God has been saying for thousands of
years, and Jesus taught clearly to people.
Worry & greed are huge traps in our life, and only through wisdom
can we let go of their fruit.
Unfortunately, humans are not much better than monkeys when it comes to
grabbing for the ‘bananas’ of this life – we still want to hold the wealth AND
have the freedom. You cannot hold onto
your wealth and have eternal wisdom. To
have freedom, you must get rid of worry & greed.
How do we burn worry & greed out of your life? We get rid of greed by generosity. We get rid of worry by work. Generosity helps us see God as the supplier
instead of ourselves, and allows God to use us as distributors of wealth
instead of being accumulators of it.
Work keeps us focused on what we can produce today, instead of worrying
about what we will have tomorrow. By
simply focusing on the work God has given us to do today, we don’t have time to
worry about tomorrow.
Don't let daily worries or greed distract us from eternal
wisdom. Stop managing worry & greed
– and burn them out of your life through work & generosity. Then the seeds of God’s Word will produce
fruit in your life --- a harvest that is far greater.
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