September Scripture

Matthew 12:30 says “Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.” (NLT)

The Lord has been showing me this visual daily over the last couple of months, in the form of an object lesson in our garden.  We’ve been fighting spider mites in our dahlia bed and in our tomato bed.  The spider mites are so tiny that most of them are unable to be seen with the human eye!  However, they suck moisture out of the bottom side of the leaves, causing a yellow mottled appearance at first.  But as the leaves begin to be damaged, they eventually turn brown and shrivel up.  You could leave them there, but they’ll just continue to be a drain on the plant’s energy, while giving no benefit to the plant itself.  They just become something that’s sucking more life out of the plant, on top of all the damage that the spider mites are doing!  You can help the plant by removing all the rotting, decaying leaves, so they don’t continue to drain energy from the plant, and by removing them, you can also help prevent the spider mites from continuing to spread.

As I walk our garden beds each morning, I look for brown, rotten leaves that I can remove from our plants, because I know that while they are attached to the plant, if they are not FOR the benefit of the plant, they are ultimately AGAINST the plant. 

They’re detrimental to the health of the plant.

The same can be said of the things we allow into our lives that may seem innocent enough.  Things like what we put on the tv when we finally sit down at the end of a busy day, or the book we choose to read on our lunch break, or even the music we listen to in the car on the way to work or school drop-off or pick-up, or the concert we go to with friends. 

1 John 1:6-7 is our verse of the month and it says:

“If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.” (NIV)

We don’t want to be like the verse says and “claim to have fellowship with Him, and yet walk in the darkness”.  Walking with Him in the light means that sometimes we have to change the channel if what’s on tv does not honor the Lord.  It might mean we change the radio station because the lyrics we’re hearing are not honoring the Lord. 

Remember that verse from Matthew 12:30 that I mentioned earlier…if that tv show or song or book is not FOR Him, then ultimately, it’s against Him and it’s like the rotten leaves in our garden.  I could certainly leave them there, but they’re not doing the plant any favors and over time, they are in fact, a drain on the plant.

In the same way, the content that we consume, the things we allow into our heart and mind can either be FOR the Lord and to our benefit, or they can be against Him and ultimately, to our detriment. 

It might be hard sometimes to say no to the book or concert or TV show that everyone seems to be buzzing about, but the Lord is after our hearts and He wants “to purify us from all sin”. When we are careful about what we allow into our hearts and minds, we walk in the light as He is in the light.

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