PULL OUT THE WEEDS!

There is a garden in the compound I live where I plant vegetables. It has proved to be a very good venture for me, particularly at this time we are facing harsh economic realities. My small garden has afforded me and others around me the opportunity to eat fresh vegetable- leaves soup almost daily every week. This has indeed cut a chunk off the expenses made in the kitchen department.

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Prior to this time, this small piece of land in the compound had no use and was always overgrown with weeds, until the idea came for us to convert it into a small vegetable garden. Now I look at that small portion of the compound with much pleasure and delight to see this fresh and green vegetable blooming and the mere sight of it brings me so much joy as I consider how such beauty could come out of a place which had once been overgrown with weeds.

There is however one major challenge I have to deal with in my small vegetable garden and that is weeds. Though I had cleared out all the weeds from this portion of land before planting my vegetables, I see them grow again among the vegetables. My small garden has also allowed me to learn some essential principles of farming and I have come to understand the characteristics of weeds. Weeds are unwanted plants and unusable plants that grow by themselves in the farm or garden.

These unwanted plants have the capacity to thrive in almost any portion of the land as long as it is left unattended to. These weeds grow rapidly and spread out all over the farm or garden in a very short period of time. They compete for nutrient and for sunlight and they often have the advantage to get these things at the expense of our valuable plants. Therefore if our plants must grow and be healthy, we must get rid of the weeds. I have found that I have to give my small garden attention for my vegetable to remain fresh and appealing. I have to get rid of the weeds as fast as possible.

I have discovered it is easy to pull out the weeds when they just start growing but if it is left unattended, it would become too strong to pull out and pose a threat to the vegetables as they may be uprooted along with the weeds. If the weeds are allowed to grow wild, it may require using a mechanical farm implement or resorting to herbicide application to get rid of them. Hence the best practice is to pull out the weeds at their tender stage.

Dear friend, let us consider our lives in the model of the garden I just described. Let us consider our hearts to be like some parcel of land. The unregenerate heart is like a portion of land overgrown with weeds. These weeds represent attitudes and lifestyles that serves no good purpose. Indeed ,when we are not saved and have not been converted by the cleansing work of our Lord Jesus Christ, our lives are overgrown with weeds which represent the sins we commit. In this state, we are of little or no use to ourselves, our neighbors and God. In our hearts come forth envy, jealousy, hatred, bitterness, anger, lust, fornication, adultery, drunkenness, slander, lies, witchcraft and all forms of evil[Matthew 15:18-19, Galatians 5: 19-21].

This is the condition of the life of all people who have not believed the good news of Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice; have not surrendered to His Lordship and repented from their sins. Mere trying to pull out the weeds from such heart is not sufficient and is the way some men think that they can get rid of sin by their power or by adherence to moral codes. A complete and total weeding is required for this life to become valuable as God initially planned. If this is the situation of your heart, please invite the Lord Jesus Christ to come into your life and by the power of His redemption, weed out sin from your life. Please do it today and do not delay.

However, when we are saved and regenerated, the Lord Jesus Christ weeds out our past corrupt life and gives us a new life. He cultivates in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, the precious seeds of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance and all graces (Galatians 5:22-23). We become people with great value both in this world and in eternity beyond. Just as I take pleasure watching my vegetable grow in the garden, God delights to see us bearing fruit that glorify His name (John 15:8). He generously supplies us with the nutrients to grow and bear much fruit.

This great garden of our lives must be kept from the weeds. As it has been in my garden of vegetables, the weeds are always cropping up with time and therefore attention must be given to check this. It is true that as long as we are still in this world, we will have many temptations to sin. Thus the weeds of sin are constantly seeking a chance to grow again in our lives, and we must always realize this. Sometimes people offend us by the way they treat us, so anger, hatred, malice and vengeance crop up in our hearts. We may not readily realize the weeds are already germinating but before we know it, these weeds begin to grow and spread out rapidly, filling our hearts once again with bitterness towards our fellow men.

Had we pulled out the weeds immediately they cropped up, we would have been spared this degeneration, but we let the weeds grow again by seeking to please ourselves and displease God. Offenses are sure to come to us as God has told us (Matthew 18: 7), but we must immediately forgive the offender and pardon them even when they do not admit their wrongs. God says the sun must not go down on our anger ( Ephesians 4:26).

I speak of a matter that every christian must pay attention to. We must never forget that a little yeast can very easily spread through a bulk of dough ( Galatians 5:9). We must never forget it is the little foxes that spoil the vine (Song of songs 2:15) and a few weeds we allow will soon overgrow our garden. You may have been tempted under the pressure occasioned by an unpleasant and embarrassing incident to tell a lie to protect yourself from blame. If you fell to this, you must immediately and promptly open up and tell the truth about the incident or else that lie will attract many other lies, guilt and condemnation and God’s cultivations in your life will soon be choked up. In the heat of a disagreement, a husband or wife may make a hurtful remark to each other, unaware they have given the weeds of disaffection a space to grow.

If they fail to pull out the weeds at the tender stage and reconcile their differences, the disaffection will soon breed suspicion of each other’s fidelity and a whole lot of trouble will follow. A young man may find himself admiring a young woman, unaware that the weeds of lust are already cropping up. If he does not pull out these weeds of lust by turning away the eye and turning to the word of God to keep a pure heart, the weeds of lust will soon grow into premarital sex, and same could happen to a married man or woman leading to adultery. It could be the craving for material possessions that soon grows into covetousness and greed that will make us engage in bribes taking and unlawful business deals.

I feel there are too many examples to cite but I leave it to you to ponder those weeds we so often leave unattended in our lives and it cause us trouble and rob us of the glory of God and makes us unfruitful and displeasing to God. We must promptly pull out the weeds by affirming and standing on the word of God. We must never take our eyes off the garden of our lives, but we must daily seek out and pull out those weeds Satan tries to plant in our lives.

Let us diligently look after the garden of our lives so that no root of bitterness and sins spring up in us causing trouble and defiling us. Let us pull out the weeds through living by the word of God and committing ourselves to prayers and communion with God. Now get to work and pull out the weeds out of the garden of your life.

Have you been blessed reading this article? Do you wish to share your experience reading this with me? You can contact me via geraldinyang@gmail.com or WhatsApp @ +2347037531746. If you will like other people to read this message or other messages on this blog, please feel free to click "Share" on your platforms. Let us partner to impact lives for Christ - be my partner! God bless you.

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