Weeds And Wheat

Good Morning!! It's not as easy to tell saints from sinners, as you might think,...appearances are often be deceiving. True story: one day a man, dirty and disheveled, shows up at the church door. He has a dog on a leash, a mangy, emaciated mutt. The man tells a story of woe that every pastor has heard a hundred times, "I lost my job,...I'm hungry,...loan me some money and I'll pay you back, honest." Partly out of sympathy, and partly to get rid of the guy, the pastor gives him a ten-dollar bill. The man walks across the street to a convenience store that sells beer and wine. The pastor, watching from the church window, kicks himself for being a sucker. A few minutes later, the guy walks out of the store, clutching a brown paper bag. He sits down on a bench and opens the bag, which contains dog food. And he feeds his hungry pooch, putting the animal's needs before his own.

Let both grow together until the harvest.—Matthew 13:30a (NIV)

The world is a messy, mixed-up place,...where good and bad co-exist. In life there is not a wheat field over here and a field of weeds over there,...rather, they're all mixed together. So, how we be trusted to know who’s a weed, and who’s wheat?...we can't. Oh yeah, about a week later, the man came back to the church, and paid back the ten dollars.

"Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes." said Paul (1 Cor. 4:5).
Don’t be too quick to pull weeds.

Lord, forgive us for jumping to conclusions, and rushing to judgment,...for some of us, it's the only real workout, we seem to get. Amen.

"It's nice to be important,...but it's more important to be nice."