Weeds in the Garden

I have weeds in my garden. I made sure that I planted my garden in good soil, and yet, I still have weeds. As you probably know, one of the biggest enemies of a good garden is weeds. Weeds will rob the soil of the nutrients that help your plants to grow and many times they will choke out good plants. What can you do? Well, you could take a hoe and chop down the weeds, but if you do that, you will probably chop down some of the good plants by accident.

Another way to get rid of the weeds is to buy some weed killer. This stuff will really kill the weeds. The biggest problem with weed killer is that it doesn't know a thistle from a tomato plant. It kills every plant that it touches. Sometimes, it is best just to leave the weeds alone until it is time to harvest the crop. Then you can separate the weeds from the good plants.

One time Jesus told a story that compared his church to a garden that was infested with weeds. Sometimes there may be people in the church that don't really belong. They do things that aren't very loving and they don't seem to believe what the Bible teaches. They sometimes say hateful things about the other members of the church and try to hurt them. They are like weeds in a garden.

We have to be very careful about trying to remove those people from the church. In his story, Jesus said that we shouldn't worry about pulling up the weeds that grow around us. If we do, we may do more harm than good. He suggests that we leave the weeds for God to take care of - and concentrate on doing what he wants us to do - which is producing good fruit.

Whenever you see someone in the church that you don't think should be there, before you grab your hoe or your weed killer, remember the advice of Jesus. Just leave it up to God to separate the weeds from the good plants. If we try to take matters into our own hands, we will probably do more harm than good.

Dear Father, help us to love one another and leave the matter of judgment in your hands. Amen.

What Is Love?

I don't know about you, but when I see a heart, the first thing I think of is love. We think and talk a lot about love, don't we? We often say things such as, "I love ice cream" or "I love to play baseball." We also say to our parents or special friends, "I love you."

A group of professionals asked some children from age four to eight, "What does love mean?" Here are some of the answers the children gave.

"Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other." -Kari, age 5

"Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs." -Chrissy, age 6

"Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it every day." -Noelle, age 7

"Love is when mommy gives daddy the best piece of chicken." -Elaine, age 5

"Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." -Mary Ann, age 4

"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." Danny - age 7

If I were to ask you to tell me what love is, what would your answer be? I think if we really want to know what love is, the best place to find the answer is in the Bible. God not only told us what love is, he showed us.

The Bible says, "God showed how much he loved us by sending Jesus to die for us, even though we were sinful." Wow! That's real love! God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us even though we did not deserve it.

You know that list of answers that children gave to the question, "What is love?" Well, here is one more.

"God could have said magic words to make the nails fall off the cross, but He didn't. That's love." I think that really says it all, don't you?

God Cares for You

When I was a little boy, I would sometimes go into a store and see a large jar filled with beans. There would be a contest to see who could guess how many beans were in the jar. The one who guessed the nearest to the correct number would win a prize.

Wouldn't it be amazing if someone could take one look at a jar and tell you exactly how many jelly beans are in the jar? That would be pretty amazing, but let me tell you something more amazing than that! The Bible tells us that God knows exactly how many hairs are on your head. Look around you, some of us have a lot of hair and some don't have very much. It doesn't matter how much or how little hair you have, God knows how many hairs are on each person's head!

The Bibles also says that God knows exactly how many birds are in the air and if one of them dies and falls to the ground, God knows it! If God cares when a little sparrow falls to the ground, can you imagine how much he cares for you? Well, I'll tell you how much God cares for you -- He cares for you so much that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross so that you could have everlasting life. Now, that's amazing!