I wish that I could get down everything that is coming to me. I am flooded with God's word, I cannot get enough and I am sorry that I cannot talk about every part that I am learning...I can only share bits and pieces. Choosing which piece is what I have to settle with for now. There is so much in this one chapter. Please God show me what you want me to say.
Matthew 13, "To those who are open to my teaching more understanding will be given, and they will have an abundance of knowledge. But to those who are not listening, even what they have will be taken away from them. That is why I tell these stories, because people see what I do, but they don't really see. They hear what I say, but they don't really hear, and they don't understand..."
Jesus used many parables in this chapter the two that I am going to talk about are the parable of the weeds and the fishing net. "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as everyone slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat...'shall we pull out the weeds?' they asked. He replied, 'No, you'll hurt the wheat if you do. Let them both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds and burn them and to put the wheat in the barn'...
Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a fishing net that is thrown into the water and gathers fish of every kind. When the net is full, they drag it up onto the shore, sit down, sort the good fish into crates, and throw the bad ones away..."
Right here among us, planted in the same field are good seed and bad. Many people are turned off from God, because they are looking at the bad seed and mistaking it for the good. Sometimes we tend to delude ourselves and think that only good seed are calling themselves Christians, but this is not true. There is bad right here among us. We are not the harvesters who can tell the bad from the good, but they will all be sorted at the same time. I cannot go to a fishing village and pick out the good fish from the bad ones, that is not my job. My job is to make sure that I am not that bad seed or fish.
I must continually look at my life; every day I must examine what I produced that day. I know some about nature and how some bad plants mimic good plants and how some animals, that are poisonous, look similar to those that are actually good. I have to continually be looking at what I am producing in my attitude, my actions and what I am allowing in my mind and body to see if I am mimicking good or if I am actually producing good fruit.
I know how easily it is to be self deceived. Not so long ago, I was doing very evil things, but I felt like I was good on the inside. In order to see if I was good or not, I had to look at the fruit that I was producing. Once again, I am not the harvester; I am not the one who can determine if the fish is good or bad, I am so thankful that I am not, but how awful it is to be unsure. I know how it is to live with fear, knowing that I am living a lie; knowing that every thing that I am doing is the opposite of what He has called me to do. I also know how freeing it is to live with His guidance in my life. I know that I am part of the harvest that He will consider good.
Many people claim that you cannot know for sure if you are going to heaven or hell. I assure you that you can! I know that I am doing everything in my power to live for Christ. I know that I am part of His harvest. I do not get everything right, but my heart and my actions are going the right way. I no longer live with that unsure feeling. I no longer try and convince myself that I will be okay, I know. I have that assurance that He promises to all of His children, if they will just listen and really hear. I am so thankful that He is full of patience and mercy. I am so thankful that I am not the one who is determining who He shall keep or who He shall "throw into the fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." How thankful I am that I no longer live my life, so that I have any doubt as to where I am going. That was an awful place to be. That unsure feeling; that feeling of never being able to be good enough; that feeling of, please be patient one day I will turn my life around. That truly is an awful feeling. I know I have felt all those feelings. I am so thankful that I finally turned my life over to my God. I am so thankful that He made the path that I could walk along. I am so glad that He did not decide to harvest when I was living "that way." Here is the scary part, we don't know when the harvest is going to come. We don't know when our last chance is here, it could be today. I am so glad that I have no doubt about where I will be. Do you?
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