Light up the Weed!

Matthew 13: 24 – 30; 36- 43.

Hola! Hope your weekend was super, mine was! Hahaha had quite a lot of fun at YWCA during the weekend in the Children’s Min Retreat. Awesome!

Well, it’s time for us to turn our eyes upon Jesus and look into His wonderful face. And the things on this Earth, will grow strangely dim in the light of His wonderful Grace.

WEED ATTACK! Ok, this is not a advertisement for you to go on drugs. It’s the story Jesus continued to tell on his little boat, in front of a huge crowd. The parable of the Weeds is told directly after the Parable of the Sower. In the Parable, we read Jesus continues to use to example of a farmer sowing seeds. Only this time, it’s not the issue of how the seeds were scattered, but rather what happens when they grow with WEEDS.

(READ Matthew 13: 24- 30)

I don’t know about you, but I’m really bad at gardening. The last time I helped in gardening, I ended up playing with soil and water, getting really dirty. Haha. But let’s establish what weeds are and what they can do. According to my limited knowledge, weeds are simply unwanted plants. Lousy plants that do not bear fruit, they are a farmer’s worst nightmare. They take up precious water and fertiliser, and the other crop cannot get the best nutrients to grow. They do not kill the crop but use up the resources meant for them. In a nutshell, weeds are bad.

So now that we’ve established that weeds are horrible, we can understand why Jesus used the example of weeds in His parable. He used them as a contrast to the wheat, showing the contrast between believer and the non-believing.

So what does the parable mean?

(READ Matthew 13: 36- 43)

What we can learn from this:

- Not only does God sow good seeds into our Earth, we have to be equally aware that the Devil also sows evil seed into this Earth for his evil purposes.
- God has a purpose for all. It can’t be more explicit when it says there will be ‘gnashing of teeth’. That’s scary.
- The need to save others and be sure of our faith. Jesus not only sent a reminder to the un-saved, but also to the saved not to be complacent of their faith.

Let’s seek God with a contrite heart and an open mind! Have a great week!

Scripture Text: Matthew 13: 1 - 23.

(READ MAtt 13 : 1 - 23)

This parable is particularly famous in sunday school because it's one of the first parables that Jesus told. some background before this parable was told:

-Jesus had already preached the 'Sermon on the Mount'
-Large crowds were drawn to Him because of His teachings
-Jesus began healing many

As written in the previous post, Jesus knew that the crowd consisted of mainly farmers, fishermen and basically people who work in the rural areas. He started the parable with something they could account with: a story about a farmer.

there's something striking about the way Jesus started this parable. He started out by saying(V 4) "As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path... Some fell on rocky places..."

if you and i use common sense, no farmer in his right mind would scatter his seed on a path or rocky places for that matter. farmers normally scatter their seeds on their fields! I can only guess that Jesus was trying to get their attention(as you can see, the next parable Jesus told was about a farmer sowing seeds into his field).

so what was Jesus trying to teach us, using this popular parable?
(READ Matthew 13: 18 - 23)

i always believe that the Bible was written not to appease the Jews or people who lived in that era, but for everyone, past present future. As can be read in 2 Tim 3:16, "All scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness."

i think the one thing that Jesus emphasized on very importantly, was the production of the man who was the 'good soil man'. it also goes to show that Jesus wanted to spread the message that believing and understanding the Word of God is simply not enough. we need to produce.

so as we read and meditate on this parable, let's do some self reflection:
are you a 'rocky man', a 'path man' or a 'good soil man'?


ASS 250809
isaac

heya guys! i have never been so excited about ASS before! we are going to embark on a WHOLE NEW series to help us lead our daily christain lives! in case you're wondering what's happening, we are going to start a brand new series of blog entries, starting this week, on the Parables of Jesus. watch and look out for them!



before we kick off the parables, i think it's essential that we get the right definition of the word 'Parables'. well, i did a search, like all curious people on the internet do, and i found this definition: (4) ordinarily, in a more restricted sense, a comparison of earthly with heavenly things, "an earthly story with a heavenly meaning," as in the parables of our Lord. taken from BibleDictionary.com



there are a few things that we will find familar with the parables:

1. it probably defined our sunday school teachings

2. it has the popular saying of Jesus: "He who has ears, let him hear."



so what's the purpose of us studying the parables? i believe that God told the parables for a specific purpose. Matthew 13: 10 - 17 illustrates this.

(READ Matt 13: 10 - 17)

Jesus knew that the people he spoke to generally did not believe who He was and did not take Him for granted. although they heard from Him and saw His acts, they still perceived Him as another powerful prophet. Jesus knew that by using parables, He could spread the message about the Kingdom of God effectively! Hallejulah! Jesus purposely made the parables easy to understand(my guess is that the crowd he had made up of fishermen, famers and what not).

Similarly, we can learn plenty from the parables of Jesus. In these stories, we learn the figurative measures Jesus took to portray the Kingdom of Heaven!

let's dive into the Parables! :)


isaac

booya! firstly wanna say thanks to everyone who contributed to the funfair in any way! really appreciate your help..thank God for His providence although it rained! we raised $180 dollars in total, in case you were wondering, which is quite a good effort considering we didn’t have any start up costs. well done guys!

i really apologise for the delayed ASSes. but I hope that you guys have been seeking the Lord in your own good time! i meant to post this last night, but I SUPER SEH(till the point that I didn’t even know how tired I was till I got home) so forgive me.

here we go! I think there’s a dangerous point in christian living when we start asking ourselves: what now? what am I going to do today with God? let’s see. Prayer? Done that yesterday. Praise? Done on Sunday. Beatitudes? Done on Saturday. Alamak. What to do today ah?!

I guess when we face the above situation, we can only conclude that we aren’t doing our QT on a regular basis. Such that when we pick up the bible, and dust off the mites, we find ourselves at a lost at where to start. I pray that we don’t fall into this trap.

One of the reasons why we fall into the cycle of not doing our QT is that we let the disappointments of life get to us easily. Endless school work, projects, unreasonable bosses, tough army life, the list just keeps going on. Directionless, we fall into the temptation of taking things into our own hands and try to find a solution. But we fail to remember that just two words from the Lord make a WHOLE world of difference.

Three statements from the Lord “It is…” offer us reaasurance, comfort and hope that Jesus is more than enough. The first is found in Matthew 4, “It is written” (vv 4,7,10). In response to the three temptation of Satan, Jesus shows us proof that the Word of God is true and powerful enough to overcome any form of temptation and power.

(READ Matt 4: 4, 7, 10)

The second is found in Matt 14: 27, when Jesus assured His disciples that He alone is enough to calm the raging storms of our lives.

(READ Matt 14: 22-33)

The third and final one is on the cruel tree, the cross, where Jesus proclaimed “It is finished”. He assured us that His death sealed the debt we had to pay for our sins and set us free.

(READ John 19:30)

So if you’re feeling like you dunno what to talk to God today, or you can’t find any place to start, start with the “It is..” verses.

i’m thinking(and I feel lead too) of starting a series on ‘The Parables of Jesus’ by using ASS. Meaning, every week we will focus on one of the Parables of Jesus. We’ll study it closely and the lessons that we can learn from it. Watcha guys think about it?


Material adapted from “The Daily Bread”

40 million babies lost to Gods great orphanage,
It’s a modern day genocide and a modern day disgrace
If this is a human right then why aren’t we free?
The only freedom we have is in a man nailed to a tree.

100 million faces, staring at the sky,
Wondering if this HIV will ever pass us by.
The devil stole the rain and hope trickles down the plug,
But still my Chinese take away could pay for someone’s drugs.

Our God reigns,
Our God reigns,
Forever your kingdom reigns.

The west has found a gun and it’s loaded with ‘unsure’
Nip and tuck if you have the bucks in a race to find a cure.
Psalm one hundred and thirty nine is the conscience to our selfish crime,
God didn’t screw up when he made you,
He’s a father who loves to parade you.

Yes he reigns, yes you reign, yes you reign,
For there is only one true God,
But we’ve lost the reins on this world,
Forgive us all, forgive us please,
As we fight for this broken world on our knees.

as i pick my pen up(i actually wrote this before typing it out), i feel a strange yet familiar sense of heaviness. i realise that as i'm writing/typing this, children are dying of HIV. some die without the love of parents, some without food or water. it's not much use residing in the fact that we often donate to charities and funds.

why God? why do such things tragic things happen to others?

on the flipside, we've got people in rich countries spending huge amounts of money 'beautifying' themselves. sigh.

as i listened to the song above, sung by delirious, i can't help but feel extremely sad. but yet something in me tells me that there is hope. that there is comfort. OUR GOD REIGNS.

Yes he reigns, yes you reign, yes you reign,
For there is only one true God,
But we’ve lost the reins on this world,
Forgive us all, forgive us please,
As we fight for this broken world on our knees.

it's the only response i could figure to this unexplainable truth. that our God reigns despite all these happenings around the globe. our God reigns in areas beyond our control.

this week in ASS, i feel that God is teaching us to let go of the areas of our lives that we are still clinging on to. we need to release it to God and declare that He reigns in EVERY area of our lives, and not just the areas we want Him to reign in. He reigns in every day, not just saturday and sunday.

this week's scripture reading: Psalm 139.

ASS 110809
isaac