Your most important
objective in life is to grow spiritually. Once you know Jesus Christ, it’s more important than your job. It’s more important than your marriage. It’s more important than making a million
dollars and retiring. It’s the very
reason you were put on this earth. God
put you here not to retire. He put you
here to get to know Him, develop a relationship with him and grow spiritually
and become what He meant for you to be. If you miss this you have wasted your life. What we’re talking about is no
small matter. It is the most
important thing in your life after you’ve come to know Christ.
all kinds of distractions. The devil
will think up all kinds of things to keep you from growing spiritually. He will do things to get you off track and
there are lots of things that can steal your focus. There are lots of problems and events that
can waste your time and energy, dampen your enthusiasm for growing
spiritually.
distractions weeds. The weeds grow up in
your life and begin to choke out the spiritual growth so you don’t have any
vitality to get to know God. You don’t
have any vitality to become what He wants you to be. Jesus says the third type of soil
represents this barrier to growth. He says in verse 7, ““Other
seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants.” Verse
14, “The thorny ground represents those who hear and accept the message but
all too quickly the message is crowded out by the cares and riches
and pleasures of this life. So they
never grow into maturity.”
He says we get weeds in our
lives. What is a weed? A weed is anything that crowds out God. It could be a good thing. It could be my family, it could be my career,
it could be my hobby, it could be television, it could be fun things to do, it
could be my investments. But anything
that crowds out God and keeps me from growing spiritually becomes a weed. And it grows up in my life and it chokes out
my spiritual growth. What do you do with
weeds? Rip them out! Uproot them! Eliminate them! Get rid of
them! I hate weeds with a passion! I’m not polite to weeds. I don’t say, “May I please pull you
out?”
uprooted? What is it in your life that
needs to be eradicated from your schedule? I’m not going to let you go on this one. If you walk out this door and don’t even think about it, you won’t think
about it again. The birds will come
along and take that seed and it’s gone. I want to pause right now and I want you to think of one thing you need
to stop doing so you can have more time for spiritual growth for getting
to know God. Think of one thing in your
schedule that’s pulling you away from God. It may be good but it’s pulling you away from God. You might even need to write it down. If we aren’t ruthless in eliminating
distractions, we end up wasting our lives.
the seed that fell on the good ground is like those who hear
God’s teaching with good, honest hearts and obey it and patiently
produce good fruit.” Luke 8:15 NLT