Day 252
Matthew 13:22 NIV
"The one who receives the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful"
What makes thorns grown in our hearts and choke the Word? Jesus likens the deceitfulness of wealth to thorns. How can we become deceived by wealth? It happens when it becomes more attractive to us than the Word of God.
Surely, nobody who hears the Word and responds to it intends to have it choked out of them later. So, how can we protect the gardens of our hearts from weeds that will destroy what we are attempting to cultivate? We must realize that to be attracted to wealth over the things of God, the Word of God must be gradually taken away from our views and be replaced with other things. We must be deceived into thinking material things are more important. Then, we will be shown the glamour of the things others possess. After that, we will be made to feel that having those things will make us happier. Since it is normal for us to pursue happiness, we will become consumed with getting the things we consider necessary to make us happy. Our concern for the Word will diminish, as we attempt to accomplish our goals. We will then begin to rationalize every move that contradicts the scriptures.
Temptations aimed at taking our focus away from God and onto material things may not be obvious in the beginning. Perhaps we used to listen to tapes of the Bible being taught, and we ran out of batteries or the tape player wore out. Instead of replacing it, we were tempted to minimize the importance of listening to the Word. The time we used to spend listening to those tapes was replaced by something carnal - not sinful - just not spiritual. Maybe we used to make a special effort to attend other services in addition to Sunday morning services. Then something hampered our being able to attend for a few weeks, and we found other carnal things to do. So, since we were not giving our attention to the Word of God during that time, we may have gotten used to watching a program on television or doing something else. Since all was still well in our lives as far as we could see, we lost our motivation to start going to extra church services. Our interest in things became stronger than our interest in the Word.
For the devil to put thorns in our hearts, he has to be allowed entrance. He does not have the ability to come in and do as he pleases. We need to watch out for the distractions he uses to gain entrance to our gardens to plant weeds that destroy our healthy plants. It will not benefit us at all to gain the whole world and lose our relationship with God. If we neglect His guidance, there is always a chance we may not even live to enjoy what we have given all our efforts to obtain.
I will examine my life for distractions - things that have taken the place of the Word or time I have spent in Christian fellowship as I pursued other interests. With God's help, I will keep my priorities in order and never be deceived by material wealth.