Flowers and Life -- Weeds and SIn

This year we had one of those long cold winters with lots of snow. Many of my friends and acquaintances have had it with winter so we anxiously await the arrival of spring.  Last year winter went straight to summer.  Not this year.  The snowfalls of winter turned into the cold rain.  It seems we would never see the sun, but it always comes out. Perennials were late coming up, my new grass seed I planted last fall didn't germinate.  AND the mosquitoes loved the wet weather, breeding in every puddle they found.  I managed to get my vegetable garden in and summer bulbs planted, but decided the weeds would have to wait until the mosquitoes, and pesky blackflies either disappeared or at least slowed down enough that they didn't carry me away or drain all my blood.

I didn't get out into the garden until late June. Often when I am gardening I see many similarities between the garden and the church.  Weeds are like our sin.  They are sneaky little things that we have to know what we are looking at to even see the weeds or sin in our life.  It is funny how the weeds know how to hide among the beautiful flowers. Often they even look similar to the flowers. The grass will grow in the same spot my young lilies grow, both leaves are narrow and about 3 inches long.  There is a slight difference in colour and shape between them. It takes years of experience to be able to tell the difference between a weed and a flowering plant. I have been gardening for over 40 years and I grew up on the farm with parents who gardened.  All my sibling's also garden.  Sometimes at the beginning of creating my own gardens, I couldn't tell the difference between a weed and a young perennial.  I would pull out my bought perennials thinking they were weeds and leave the weeds in thinking they were my flowers.

As a Christian I also took many years of getting into the bible, knowing who God is and listening to His small voice to learn the difference between sin and life. 

 The other day during my quiet time with God my devotion for that day was a verse from Zephaniah 1.  I hadn't read this minor prophet book in a long time so I decided to read chapter one.  Zephaniah is only 3 chapters, therefore, I figured I mind a well read all of Zephaniah  This book is about how God will get rid of the evil from people on judgement day.  The verse that struck me was in chapter 3 verse   "Her priest desecrate the Sanctuary.   They use God's laws as a weapon to maim and kill souls."

Too many times I have had Christians who claim to know the bible but just like these people they twist it so they can use it to manipulate people into doing what they think they should do. Like the Pahariess in Jesus' day, they use God's law as a weapon to maim and kill souls.  Often these people have gotten into a leadership position, by either putting themselves there, yearning for it or having another person who abuses God's word for their own glory put them into leadership. Usually, this happens so they may have an ally or partner in their crime.  Of course, they don't see that they are sinning, They think they are doing God's will.

Matthew 7: 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but does not notice the log that is in your own eye? Years ago I was thinking of this verse and realized that if I had a real log in my eye I would be blind.  Spiritually when we let pride (sin) rule us, our pride is our log and we can't see it, but how we love to take the speck out of someone else's eye.  I have seen Christians lose their ministry because they refuse to humble themselves enough to take the log out of their eye. Instead, they kill souls by twisting the bible to comply with their needs. 

We must always ask God to examine our hearts and remove our sins instead of trying to take the sin out of others. 
We will be doing this until we meet Jesus in heaven for we also will battle with sin.