THE GIST OF THE SIFT

Earlier this week, I tuned in to hear a female minister {and self proclaimed “kingdom speaker”} on a podcast program. A friend of mine is a big fan of hers and she knows I’m always up for some good, inspirational, Christian preaching. The speaker said, “In preparation for this, I was being led to several scriptures addressing the topic of separating/sifting wheat from chaff and the significance of what that topic truly entailed in my own life. Luke 3:17 reads, He comes ready to clean the grain. He will gather the grain and clean it all. He will put the clean grain into a building. But He will burn that which is no good with a fire that cannot be put out. Ladies, I have a word for all of you who are struggling with what I like to call, Proper People Placement.”

In a nutshell, she preached a sermon about how we believers represent the wheat and how we must continually be pruning and separating ourselves from the chaff; representing nonbelievers and even unproductive believers who don’t appear to be progressing spiritually or aren’t on the same spiritual page as us (as we think we are, is more like it). She went on and on about how far God had brought her once she took the initiative and more of a leadership position in her own wheat-chaff separations process. Don’t get me wrong, I understood where she was trying to go with what she was saying. I’m sure her heart was in the right place but something about what she was saying did not ring true to me.

So as she was speaking, I started surfing her scripture reference for myself and as I did so, I was directed to Matthew 13:24-29. It reads: 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! Where did they come from?’ “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.” This passage blessed me so much y’all!

My understanding of this scripture regarding the topic at hand is that her assessment is off. When we take this full burden upon ourselves, we are essentially playing Jesus…judging based through tainted or biased eyes. Jesus knows this better than anyone!!! How often do we seek to esteem ourselves in a higher regard than we truly deserve and then attempt to play the compare and contrast game based on what we think others are lacking? This is why in verse 30 He directs to just let the wheat and weeds grow together, and HE will do the separating when He’s ready!

Can we be real for a moment? Is it possible that in all our hyper-spiritual view of our discernment, that we actually sift out the wrong folks? Is it possible that we hold the on-the-ball, prosperous, #alwayswinning types more dear, while casting our slower growth, struggling, folks to the back-burner of our importance radar? Jesus doesn’t judge by outward beauty, popularity, grind factor, or bank account. We know that He often uses/chooses the very same folks that wouldn’t make it into our circle/clique. Jesus was known for keeping the broke, the rogue, the loose, and the sick, in his company.

This blog is simply a reminder to us all to stay in our lane and to be careful about how you view yourself. We must remember that as close to God as we may feel we are, it doesn’t give us the authority to put ourselves on pedestals to make others feel less than…as we boast about ourselves in the faith. No one is fully aware of anyone’s relationship with almighty God; only our own. We need to stay focused on our goal, Godly matters, and staying in His will. If you are wheat, there is no need to broadcast it because it will be clear. The chaff will be separated from you because your value is evident to the true living God…not because you have self-proclaimed it as such.

*WEDNESDAYS W/ INDIGO*