Prepare for series: Wheat vs. weeds
Weeds vs. wheat.
It's like God has an alarm system in my Spirit that has been sounding off that he is getting ready to do something. Prepare! Prepare! Prepare! As time gets closer this alarm gets louder, God reveals more and more, as time gets closer, I self-examine myself and the state of the world even more. This is not about the end times, this is about the revival scheduled to come in the end times. As God has been leading me and downloading revelation into me, I am realizing how much we have highlighted the events of the end-time in the form of God’s wrath, sin, and tribulation, that we are not educated about the fact that there is God’s love scheduled to come with it simultaneously (Isaiah 61:2). I did not realize until now, that God has been prepping me to write and talk about certain things because we need to be equipped as a church, a people, and as individuals- which we are not yet. We are undereducated. The more the Lord walks and talks with me, the more I realize this. My prayer is that anyone who reads this will gain the true understanding needed to walk ready. There is so much the Lord has been showing me with what He is doing, I believe that this will be a “how to be prepared” blog series or a “what God is doing in the earth series. As people, unfortunately especially as believers we have fear for the wrong things, not enough devotion to God, and a lack of knowledge- things that will cause us to perish in both the physical and spiritual. We get fearful of plagues instead of trusting the sovereign God who can protect us from them, hyperfocused on witches and their powers instead of the authority of Jesus that surpasses them and have been screaming “Amen” and “Hallelujah to weak preaching that doesn’t even glorify Jesus but humans and their emotions. Today we will be discussing something the Lord has been both teaching and showing me about, how he is getting ready to clean house (indeed he has already begun. The wheat versus the weeds. Those who belong to the Lord and those who are putting on a show as if they belong to the Lord but they are not.
Let me get straight to the point (really one of the points). Wolves in sheep’s clothing will be exposed. The thing is that when God exposes them would you have the discernment to see it? Throughout the past few years of being a follower of Jesus Christ, I’ve seen many believers say things that show their disapproval of false ministers, people professing Christianity but also living a life that opposes the Bible (this is both judgemental as well as lukewarm Christianity); however, who they listen to contradict what they believe. And no I’m not talking about people who don’t know Jesus, these are people who’ve had an intimate relationship with the Lord. I think a misconception that believers have about deception is that it does not apply to us. That we are too “saved” that it can’t touch us. But the Bible makes it clear that deception is deceptive, so much so that even some of the elect, which means actual believers of the Lord Jesus Christ will be deceived, but I believe God’s mercy shows faithfulness in rescuing those who do want to follow him. Though we may have entered the snare, he will deliver us from it. Psalm 91:3 A
A point I want us to realize is that all humanity has been deceived because every human has sinned. When we sin we believe that what we are doing is good or worth following over the ways of God. We were not always aware of our sins, it takes the light of God to reveal this to us whether we are believers or not. John 3:17-19. But I believe the Bible makes it clear that deception is deceiving enough. I also believe it takes faith and the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ for us to no longer walk in deception but true righteousness.
I believe that the Bible shows countless instances where deception happened. We all know the story of Adam and Eve, Genesis 3, and how they ate the forbidden fruit when Satan deceived Eve into thinking that God was withholding something good from her when the truth was God made Adam and her richly abundant in everything. They had everything good and Satan deceived them into thinking they didn’t, that it was not enough. You can check out my blog post “ Genesis 3: A blog style Bible study” once it is released, which touches much deeper on this subject. When Solomon became an apostate and turned away from God and followed the idols of the pagan women he chose to be intimate with, though God warned him time and time, he did not see that these snares were worth God delivering Him from. Judas thought that his greedy pleasures could bring forth more riches and value than the messiah, Jesus himself who can save any soul from the gates of hell. The creator of everything. Colossians 1:16
In these instances, we can see the similarities and goals of deception. To pull us anyway from God and to place our faith in something else that mocks God and says “ God could not be God enough”.
Deception:
Brings forth doubting God to remove your faith in Him.
Brings forth distrust in God.
Pulls us completely away from God to something we now idolize.
The goal of deception is always apostasy.
And the scary thing is apostasy does not always come in the form of openly denying that Jesus is Christ. Our salvation is fueled by faith, an inward thing that eventually bears outward fruit. Faithlessness is the same. You can speak Christianese (language where your conversation seems to say you are a Christian) but not live by faith, by the Holy book, nor have true faith in Jesus. It all starts from the heart, whether you're drawing to Jesus or away.
Ephesians 2: 8-9 “ For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.”
Proverbs 4:23 “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”
Matthew 12: 34-35 “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.”
God’s grace helps us to grow.
Now I’m not going to act like I have never been deceived before because I have and yes, I am talking as a believer. Especially in the early stages of my walk with the Lord. This has taught me that zeal can be a bad thing when there is no discernment. Thinking someone is a true minister of God but they’re not, saying someone is not a true minister but they are, discernment from the Holy Spirit is needed to help us avoid these errors.
Deception preys on when we deviate from God in a certain way. It could be by allowing a bible contradicting voice to speak to us, it could be by opening doors to the enemy, it could be by desiring something so much that we put that thing over God’s timing and word; and begin to try to control things ourselves to get it. Deception can prey on our lack of knowledge of things, but God in His mercies will sometimes allow it so that he can teach you through experience and build your discernment up.
If deception preys on our distance from God, I believe the only way to prevent it and be delivered from it is by being close to God.
What does this look like?
Loving him and abiding in him. In John 14, we are met with all these promises of God as disciples of God, followers of Jesus, these are all conditional we must follow Jesus and obey him. The only way this is possible is by staying near him and the only way we can stay near him is by doing these two things. Loving Him and obeying Him. In Psalm 91, we are met with several promises of God's protection but under one condition, “He who abides in the secret place…” The protection comes in the intimacy we have with the Father. Intimacy is what keeps the devil away. It gives us the strategy to also keep the devil out, to reject him and his schemes.
Deception attacks our identity.
When Eve doubted God, she no longer believed she was who He created her to be. She was inadequate and lacked security in God, when indeed God created her as good, and whole, and gave everything to her in the same state because He is good. Eve felt like her identity was in the thing Satan deceived her with, that she would be like God knowing good and evil when she was created as good, to only know good, and to know the source of good. Solomon thought that his lust for women was where his fulfillment was located, instead of seeing that the God who gave him the great gift of wisdom also created him in wisdom, that he too was worthy of self-respect, a vessel set apart to display God’s glory. Judas too placed his identity in the things that his heart was greedy for, money. He could not see that his soul was worth more than money, he did not realize that his identity could only be fulfilled by the Messiah who loved him and showed him the way of life by living it with him. Judas did not see himself as worth living for or dying for because he thought that his value came from the value of the amount of money he possessed, but even that could not save him when he betrayed Jesus.
So now you are probably thinking “Okay girl, how does this relate to God doing something with the wheats and the weeds because I’m still trying to figure out what that even means”. Okay, I got you.
In Matthew chapter 13 verses 24 through 30, Jesus tells a parable to His disciples and a multitude of people about the weeds (which are referred to here as tares) and the wheat.
The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares
24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ”
Then he spoke to His disciples and explained to them the meaning of the parable in Matthew chapter 13 verses 37 through 43;
37 He answered and said to them: “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man (Jesus). 38 The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons (children) of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. 39 The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. 40 Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. 41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, 42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear (listen/understand to obey)!
The deception plays a role in the wheats vs. the wheats because the weeds at some point were deceiving enough for the angels to have mistaken the wheats for them. Growth is the difference that helps them distinguish it. Many deceptive so-called ministers of the gospel, have crept into the church, and have taken advantage of the immaturity of believers (Jude 4), yet the Lord is cleaning his house and there will be a separation, no more confusion, no more misuse of God’s church for self-gain while hurting God’s sheep (children). I think it is so interesting how the Lord said wait until they grow to tell the difference, immaturity does not always mean that you're childish in a bad way, growth is something every human has to go through, whether intellectually, spiritually, or physically. The problem is when they don't want to grow when they choose instead to do things that please their sinful lusts and passions when they want to feed off God's people but not be God’s people. You cannot refuse to grow, you will grow into stagnation and hard-heartedness, and evil will grow inside of you. God is not just dealing with ministers in leadership but all people period. He’s dealing with the ones who want to be connected to Him (the wheat) and those that don’t. God is losing his angels to begin to tear up the weeds, but before that, He is maturing his children so that we don’t get mixed up with them. The beautiful thing about this is it’s like Jesus is saying "Don’t tear up my children too early, they are young, not troubled, they need to grow, and when they do you will know the difference".
This leads to my next point, we need discernment to have grace for those who are still growing. We need to make sure we are not so low in righteous judgment that we are calling God’s children Satan's children. We can not be so low in discernment that we cannot discern the works of God with the works of satan, even Jesus told the angels to wait so that they would not mistake those who are His. Have grace also for yourself when you know you are allowing the Lord to prune still and develop you, do not let anyone kick you out of your spot as a Child of God.
I say this to say, that a beautiful yet earth-shaking event is about to occur on this earth and God almighty is behind it. He is getting to lose rewards on the world according to what people deserve, still all in His mercy. His ultimate goal is revival, true revival not a service called revival. Choose God because He chose you first. The story of Jesus Christ, His Son, is proof of that.
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