Until The Harvest

Until the Harvest

Read: Matthew 13:24-30

“Let both grow together until the harvest.”

Matthew 13:30

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

—Mother Teresa

IN WORD A common frustration for churches is the varying levels of commitment among their members. Some variation is normal, of course. But spend a long enough time in any congregation and you will find some participants with such a low level of commitment—or a high degree of ill-spirited commitment—that their citizenship in the kingdom of God is suspect.

As annoying as it is, God is not going to pull the weeds from His garden just yet. We’ll have to get used to that. That sometimes makes His garden virtually indistinguishable from the surrounding uncultivated landscape— our kingdom citizenship is hard to decipher on social surveys, for example—but that’s a necessary evil. Nascent wheat and nascent weeds look awfully similar sometimes. They’ll just have to be separated later.

Notice that there isn’t anything in this parable that gives believers permission to find and label unbelievers. That’s a judgment call, but not ours—it belongs to God alone. We can certainly point out ungodly activity within the church, but we are not given authority to judge the saved from the unsaved. That requires 20/20 vision into the human heart, and we don’t have it. Let God handle that.

IN DEED We will have to live with our frustration. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world are so intertwined that only the divine hand can sort the whole mess out.

Meanwhile, how do we respond to the weeds? The same way we respond to anyone: with the principles of the kingdom and the character of the King. Humility, forgiveness, grace, gentleness, purity, and love should mark our relationships with everyone, whether inside the church or out, whether a weed or a fruitful grain. That’s God’s way. It will be easier after the harvest time; it is critical now.