‘Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ‘Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds!’…’An enemy has done this!’ the farmer exclaimed. ‘Should we pull out the weeds?’ they asked. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘you’ll uproot the wheat if you do. Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds’”’ (vv. 24-30 NLT). There are two important lessons for us here. 1) We must get to know God’s Word so well that any mistakes (accidental or deliberate), however convincing they are, can’t mislead us. Paul warned the leaders of the church at Ephesus: ‘Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard!’ (Acts 20:30-31 NIV). 2) We must stay spiritually awake and alert. The seeds that were sown that night didn’t produce a harvest of weeds until later, and by that time they couldn’t be uprooted. We might think that one little slip-up doesn’t make much difference. One degree off course seems harmless – but if we stay on that trajectory long enough, we’ll end up far from where God wants us to be. So we need to deal with every mistake and failing, no matter how tiny. The Bible gives us this advice: ‘They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer’ (Acts 2:42 NIV). Let’s choose to do that too.

What Now?

If you don’t already, try following a Bible reading plan – there’s the Bible in a Year plan at the end of each Word For You reading, or have a look online for one that works for you.