Weeds

Hebrews 5:14 (ESV)

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

One of the most exciting days with a new garden is that day when you see some tiny green shoots coming out of the ground. The seeds are good, the soil is warm enough, and a faint indication of a row appears. In your heart you feel a rising hope of what the harvest will one day be.

Then you spot it. One of those slender green sprouts doesn’t look quite like the others. Is it a weed or not? Should you pull it or let it go?

At first, it can be difficult to identify which little sprouts are the plants you intended and which are the evil weeds that will siphon nourishment from your new crop. One of the many lessons to learn is when it comes to weeds, it’s always best to know for sure what is a weed and what isn’t before you pull it up.

The more gardening a person does, the easier they can spot the sometimes minute differences between the sprouts of the plant you want and the sprouts of the plants you don’t want.

It’s a similar situation in our spiritual lives when it comes to the truth of God’s word and the false teachings we might encounter. Those who are new to the faith often have trouble distinguishing between what is real spiritual truth and what is a deception to lead them astray. As we grow in the Lord and we encounter some of these teachings, we learn to spot the lies and to weed them out while they are still harmless.

A gardener can study pictures of seedlings to learn what a specific seed should produce so when they see one that looks different from the seedling they are expecting, they can remove it. A Christian needs to know God’s truth so well that deviations from that truth will stand out clearly, and they can turn away from it before it does much damage. Just as there are many weeds threatening our crop, there are many spiritual weeds that threaten our spiritual lives. These spiritual weeds steal what we need to grow and end up stunting our spiritual growth.

Let’s train ourselves to spot these types of spiritual weeds and eliminate them as soon as they start—before they can take root and cause any damage.

Dear Lord, help us to train ourselves to be able to spot the spiritual weeds that will take us from You. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.