Weeds in the Church (The wheat and the tares Matthew 13:24-30)

Weeds in the church (The wheat and tares Matthew 13:24-30)
Most years we plant a vegetable garden on the hill behind our house and things always start out good for us. We keep the garden looking nice and neat but inevitably every year we begin to slip in our maintenance of the garden and slowly the weeds will start to take over. The garden will still produce some fruit but a lot of the nutrients that should go to the producing plants is gobbled up by the weeds. When this happens, the fruit producing plants must compete for the nutrients and ultimately it makes the garden less productive than it should be. In the parable of the wheat and tares, I can totally relate to the frustration of having what you worked for overtaken by weeds. It is frustrating, slows down the production, and the crop never reaches its full potential because of it. As we look at this parable, I want to make sure that everyone understands that this is not necessarily the church versus the world being explained but is more likely the true church versus the church goers being explained by Jesus. Both the wheat and tares are growing in the master’s field, and they must be separated from each other at the harvest, if it was the church versus the world there would be in separate fields.
Our gathering places, buildings that we refer to as churches are field with both wheat (true children of God) and tares (those playing religion). It can be hard to tell the difference in who is serious and who is playing and that is why the master said to let them grow together until the harvest then they would be separated. The weeds in the church do the same thing as the weeds in the garden, they still nutrients from where it was intended to go, and they slow the production of fruit. Many of the parables of Jesus spoke clearly of this same issue, the fish, and the eels where in the same net and the sheep and the goats in the same field to be separated later. For some reason our modern culture has equated showing up to a building with a steeple on it as being part of the church but that is far from the truth. Jesus said those who truly love Him are those who keep His commandments (John 14:15) not those who simply play religion and attend gatherings. I do not want to sound harsh or condemning at all, because the best place one can be if they do not know Jesus on a personal level is in church. I just want to everyone to know that there is a possibility that you could have a false sense of security that everything is right between you and God because you attend church but on the day of judgment when the separation occurs you find yourself in the weed pile. Our relationship with God should be the most important thing in our life and every one of us should daily examine to ensure that we are walking in true fellowship with God. (2 Corinthians 13:5, 2 Peter 10-11)