MATTHEW 13:27-30: “And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let 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.’”

OBSERVATION: Will the real “Church” please stand up? One of the realities of the parables in Matthew 13 is that there is a “visible kingdom” and a “True Kingdom” of God. The parable of the wheat and the tares, the mustard seed, and the leaven all point to this. To the outward observer it appears that there is a great field of true believers. Yet, in reality the field is mixed with true believers and false believers. The true believers are those who have heard and understood the “good seed” of God’s Word. The false believers are those who have been planted by the enemy. They are the seed scattered on the rocks, sown on the rocky soil, and planted with little or no root. How should true believers respond to this?

There are many who are missing Jesus’ instruction today. They are on a holy crusade to purge the church of the “tares” among us. Yet in doing so they are in reality hurting the cause of Christ as they cast an angry picture of the church to an unbelieving world. While it is true that we must stand up for the faith once delivered to the saints, our call as we await the return of Jesus Christ is not to thin out the field. Rather, it is to sow as many seeds of the Gospel as possible so that all my hear, and so that as many as our Lord God has called may believe.

To take an example from sales and marketing let me share some personal experience. I have worked with people over the years who have had great analytical and technical skills. They could analyze, chart, and diagnose all the reasons that we were not getting sales. Yet, the one thing they were unable to do was – Sell! The bottom line for any sales or marketing individual is to create and close sales. Without sales a company dies. Without sales all the graphs, power point presentations, and analytical studies in the world are meaningless. We can criticize our potential customers for everything they are doing wrong -or- we can go in among them and try to help them by offering our product and services.

How does this apply to the Church? The Gospel is meant to be “Good News”! If the “Good News” is simply criticism and analytical dissection of everything that is wrong with the Church and the world rather than everything that God can make right through Jesus Christ, we are trying to weed out the field before it is time. Jesus said – ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest…”

Lord, forgive me for all the energy I have wasted in criticizing and analyzing the harvest field. Help me to take this energy, in the power of Your Spirit, and in the sincere expression of Your Love, and engage my life in spreading the pure seed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Let me be a sower of “good seed” until You return! In Jesus Name!