Dear Church Family,
With distractions abounding, believ-ers are in a relentless battle to main-tain strong spiritual priorities and to keep a steady focus on eternal matters. Church, what things are your hearts and minds focused on?
Over the years, I have spent a lot of time and mental energy pondering our Lord’s parable of the sower, first recorded in Matthew 13:3-9. It
is the parable of the farmer who went out to scatter seed. Some seed fell on a beaten-down path and was scarfed up by hungry birds. Other seeds fell in shallow soil, and didn’t germinate properly, and perished. Some of the seed fell into a weedy, thorny area, and didn’t bear fruit because it was choked up with weeds and thorns. Thankfully, some of the seed fell on good soil and be-came productive, fruit-bearing plants.
Our Lord Jesus Christ explained the spiritual meaning of the parable, and you probably remember the spiritual lessons for each of the four outcomes of the seed. It is my great concern that we are too much like that third category of seed: “And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them” (Mt. 13:7). Jesus taught that the thorns in this parable are “the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches chokes the word, and he becomes unfruitful” (Mt. 13:22).
The years 2020 and 2021 have been great breeding grounds for thorns. There is cause for great concern here in the church, that disruption of ministries and attendance has led to a dominant focus on the cares and distractions of this perishing world that is only our temporary home.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is my attempt at a spiritual wake-up call. Let us all analyze our spiritual focus. Where do you find yourself in this very probing parable?
In Christian love,
John