TODAY’S DEVOTION (SATURDAY 22ND FEBRUARY 2025)
“But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.”
“So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’
“But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘” Matthew 13:26-30 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 53RD DAY OF OUR YEAR OF VICTORY
We bless the LORD GOD almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth, for giving us another day to fulfill. Yes, days are not given to us to be wasted but to be fulfilled.
The word “fulfill” suggest that there is a purpose to accomplish or a will of God to either do or align with each day. Being fed with God’s word is one of the major purposes of any day the LORD gave us and a major will of God to align with if our goal is to fulfill our days.
This morning, we will be visiting a well of truth on Right relationships to refresh our hearts with the subject. This is one subject that should be treated regularly because of how God uses relationships to better lives. It is important to note that Satan also use them to break lives into pieces.
The Book of numbers and Leviticus showed us how God instructed Israel to separate from people who touch the dead, or are leprous, or have a discharge among them. The laws were for health and ceremonial reasons.
They upheld them as the Church in the wilderness. What the LORD instructed them to do then was a shadow of what He would latter teach the New Testament church, by the hands of the early apostles, to live by.
They upheld the shadows; we are to uphold the substance.
The LORD showed us the mystery surrounding the instruction and how it relates to our spiritual lives today. I feel we should add to the building blocks of our faith by revisiting this well so that we will not destroy ourselves by keeping people in our lives that should have no place in our lives.
There is a destruction that comes when we keep people in our lives that God have not designed to be part of our lives. Samson kept Delilah and ended his life tragically.
Dinah joined herself in friendship with the heathen and she was raped, leading to bloodshed. The Bible says we should not be unequally yoked together with two kinds of people; unbelievers and people who function as temples for demons.
There is something to be doing from time to time if you will become all that God may have created to you to be. That thing is weeding. One metaphor that the LORD used in describing our lives and destiny is a field or farmland. He also said we are His planting.
THESE AGRICULTURAL TERMS HOLD A LOT OF MESSAGES FOR US.
A field or farmland needs weeding to yield its crops. A planting needs weeding to grow and yield a harvest for its owner. Weeding is therefore the will of God for us!! If we do not carry it out from time to time, we will never actualize our full potential as a blessed and prosperous people.
Come to think of it, where do blackmails and lies proceed from? Where do gossip and slander proceed from? Where do betrayal and murders proceed from? Who is the best weapon men use in betraying another through confidential whispers?
If the devil wants to invade your privacy and have someone tell everything about you to the outside world (the bad and the ugly) who can he use?
Understand that he cannot use a demon, because demons are not fit for such evil works. The answer to the question lies in two words, “Wrong Relationships.” God likened wrong relationships to tares sown among wheat by the devil to hinder our lives.
Whether you believe it or not, most of what you face in life are products of the wrong people you are either putting up with or have put up with, at one time or the other. God want to stop the enemy from using wrong relationships to destroy us.
Are you ready for the miracle? He wants to make us wiser than our enemy in relationship matters.
Let me share an old story I have shared repeatedly on this platform. Between 1984 and 1993 my family was involved in a lot of farming in the young City of Abuja then. When I say Family, I meant my dad, My Mum and siblings.
MY DAD WAS A POLICE OFFICER AND HAD JUST BEEN TRANSFERRED FROM CALABAR, IN CROSS RIVER STATE SOUTH-SOUTH OF NIGERIA, TO ABUJA.
The government of the day was still trying to convince people to move from Lagos Nigeria to the young Capital city, Abuja. So, the population was small, and houses were few. The city had enough land to use for growing crops and dealing with hunger then.
The food was relatively cheap. With very little money you can buy a lot. Despite that, my dad’s salary was too poor to take care of us all. So, we had to do farming. We grew virtually every Nigerian crop you can think of. The only things we did not grow were, onions, Oil, salt and water. That is hilarious but true.
During those farming years I learnt a lot of lessons that are helping me now to understand God and His ways.
Growing up in Christ, they helped me to understand what God meant, whenever He uses agricultural terms in metaphorical expression of Truth. One major truth I understood was the truth on weeding.
I understood the different kinds of weeds that grow around our crops. So, in the days of weeding the farms to allow the crops to grow, we will carefully remove them, and when that happens you see the crops growing beautifully and producing bountifully in their seasons.
It imprinted a message in my heart of what a man or woman of destiny should be doing from time to time. Truly, the life of a man or woman of destiny is like those crops.
Satan has a way of planting weeds around us. Those weeds are the many wrong relationships we bring into our lives either through false marriages, business connections, and related things. If those relationships are not weeded out of our lives, we will never grow beautifully or produce bountifully.
If Satan plants a leper, a person with discharge or one who is fun of touching the dead around you as a relationship, you will be sorry.
THE WISDOM I GATHERED FROM THOSE FARMING YEARS MADE ME UNDERSTAND THAT WEEDING IS PART OF LIFE.
If you do not make seasonal weeding a part of your life as a Child of God, you will never grow to become what God has called you to be. There is a kind of people you must wake up to weed out of your life from time to time else you will move from being a crop to becoming a weed yourself.
You do not need to listen to gossip, backbiters or concerned people when it comes to removing the wrong people from your life. You only need the sensitivity or voice of the Holy Spirit so you can take the proper decision.
Maybe this will help you. I have come to discover that every relationship (spiritual, marital, social, economic, or whatever) does four things to us.
1. They divide us positively or negatively.
2. They subtract from us negatively or positively.
3. They add to us negatively or positively.
4. They multiply us, negatively or positively.
If a relationship has been dividing, subtracting, adding to, or multiplying you negatively, apply the “weeding principle.” In other words, weed them from your life to save your life (the crops). You can only love your neighbor AS you love yourself not less or more than you love yourself.
In simple terms, if you have not loved yourself, you will not be able to love your neighbor. You will be hypocritical and wicked to yourself trying to love your neighbor if you have not loved yourself. Loving yourself gives you the wisdom to love your neighbor.
The principle of seasonal weeding is very important in dealing with wrong relationships, irrespective of who they are.
I remember one day I went into our rice farm and discovered some weeds growing along with the rice. Honestly, I did not know they were weeds because they looked alike. But as they grew together, the weeds became very clear to us. We carefully moved into the farm and removed them away to save the crops.
Wrong relationships sometimes are like that; they look right when they first appear.
BUT AS THEY GROW, THEIR TRUE NATURE WILL BEGIN TO EMERGE.
If you do not carefully weed them out of your life you may grow up with them and get to the evening season of your life, where they will destroy you in old age. You might end up an old wretched man or woman, regretting over so many things that can no longer be amended then.
Many people do not know that time is one of the greatest “revelator” of things.
As people press into our lives, time has a way of exposing who they are to us. It has a way of proving us wrong. When time proves you wrong concerning any relationship you erroneously took for a right one, you must apply the principle of weeding to it else you will lose.
Now, there were weeds that we found on our farm in those days that we could not remove at the time we found them. We discovered that trying to remove them will mean uprooting the crops as well. To such weeds we usually apply the Biblical principal Jesus taught concerning the wheat and tares. A major highlight in our devotional text says;
“But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘”
Some wrong relationships are like tares among wheat that must be allowed to grow together until the time of harvest.
They have grown up to be so attached to us that any attempt to remove them will remove us as well. In cases like that we must sense when the harvest time comes for the weeding of such relationships. The harvest time is the time when their true picture is revealed.
IT IS A TIME WHEN THE IDENTITY OF THE WEED CAN NO LONGER BE MISTAKEN.
The Bible says, once we hit that time, we are to remove such relationships from our lives. There are times that you will not have to remove them but bend the knee to God in prayers to help you carry out the weeding Himself.
If the Spirit leads, you can even ask the LORD in prayer to turn them into crops or a fertility system for your progress in life. Do not forget, with God all things are possible.
I hope the LORD has spoken to us this morning. May every paragraph written become a book of wisdom in your mental shelve in Jesus precious name! AMEN!
LET THIS SCRIPTURAL PARABLE BE YOUR MEDITATION TODAY:
“Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way.”
“But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared.”
“So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’
“But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘” Matthew 13:24-30 NKJV