Don’t get choked.
“They hear the teaching and accept it. Then they grow and produce a good crop—sometimes 30 times more, sometimes 60 times more, and sometimes 100 times more.”
Mark 4:20
So this man Jesus used to speak in a lot of parables. One time when He was teaching He told a story about a farmer who was throwing seeds out to grow some grain. As He was scattering His seeds, some fell on the sidewalk and birds came and ate it. Some fell on shallow soil with a bunch of rocks. Those seeds sprouted quickly because the ground was shallow but as soon as the sun came, they were killed because they didn’t have deep roots. Another group of seeds fell in some thorns and were choked out so that they didn’t grow to produce grain. The 4th group fell on fertile soil and sprouted, grew, and went on to produce grain that was thirty, sixty, and a hundred times as much as had been planted.
So I heard this and had my own thoughts. My attention went straight to the seeds the thorns choked out. The pastor’s kid in me naturally thought it was about church people. I thought to myself, “oh yeah that old church lady who yelled at me for bringing a batman action figure into the church when I was 6 is like the thorn. She was tryna choke me out. She was tryna “steal my joy.” or it was like that lady who yelled at me for wearing a fedora in church or the one who said I was doing something wrong and disrespectful when elementary school-age Pace rolled up his sabbath school lesson like a sword. I really thought this was about the broken people who are going around breaking people or the people who had their joy taken away that are out here taking it from other people (shout out to Jonathan McReynolds for the song People lol). But Jesus had a different example.
When Jesus went on to explain the meaning of the parable, it went something like this...
The farmer planted seeds by taking God’s word to others. The seed that fell on the sidewalk represents those who hear the message only to have Satan come at once and take it away from them.
The seed that fell on the rocky soil represents the people who receive God’s message of love and immediately receive it with joy but because they don’t have deep roots or belief in it they fall away as soon as problems come. Jesus goes on to say that the seed that fell on the thorns represents people who hear the word of God, but the message is crowded by the worries of life.
Now, this is a little different than what I thought. I assumed everything had to do with outside action I could blame on others. If I get messed up by the birds, there is nothing I can do about that. If I get stomped out by the sun, I couldn’t do anything to stop that. But the thing about how Jesus describes the seed that falls by the thorns is that worry has nothing to do with outside stimuli. You can't blame worry on anyone else. Worry is coming from inside. And I’m so concerned that we are living lives at risk of being choked out by something that is being powered by our own minds. It’s one thing to have Satan come and steal your joy. It’s another thing to fall because you haven’t grown deep enough roots. But falling because of your own worry is pathetic.
So many of us hear the word of God, and we experience his love. We feel his presence, but that doesn’t mean anything because we let our own worry take it away!
You may think church people are out to get you, but it’s safe to say many times our own worry is what is choking us out.
I’m tired of living a life of worry and the fear of things I can’t control or even understand. I’m tired of worrying so much that it paralyzes me from moving forward. I’m tired of worrying so much that life is snuffed out.
My good friend Jonas Clarke is quoted saying, “If you can’t control it, don’t worry, and if you can control it, why worry.”
We are spending so much time blinded by the idea of what we must accomplish or what may be needed from us in the future that we become stuck in our own worry. We feel overwhelmed by what may be needed or what we must do to prepare and provide in the future, but I’m here to let you know that an understanding of the gospel is all we need to snuff out the worry that is trying to snuff out us.
In the parable, the only difference between the seeds that are choked by the thorns and the seeds that go out to produce fruit is that one group accepts the word of God. All of the groups hear the word of God. The group that produced fruit accepted it. The group that went on to survive and thrive was the group that heard the word and grew in it because ultimately they accepted it for themselves.
You can go to Mark 4 to fact check me for this story!
In John 14:1 Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, believe in God believe also in me.”
Believe in the life that Jesus’s death has brought you!
You cannot accept and believe in the gospel that while you were still stuck in the fear, guilt, and shame of your sin, Jesus decided to love you and give to you so that you could have life, a hope, and a future and still live in the same worry.
“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world, we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love”
(1 John 4: 16-18).
You don’t have to worry.
You are already a recipient of God’s love.
You are already signed up for his peace.
You are already promised to have a future and a hope.
And it has nothing to do with your performance and what you bring to the table,
And everything to do with what Jesus already did. He’s finished. Live in that finished work.
If you met Bill Gates and he was like yo, I actually knew you before you met me. He says that he already set aside more than enough money for your bachelors, masters, and Ph.D., you just have to accept it. It has nothing to do with your GPA, what you go on to do later, or what you do in school and everything to do with the fact that he knows you and loves you. Would you still worry about school or would you rest in the peace that everything has been taken care of?
Rest in the peace of Jesus.
Accept him and I promise things will change.
Thank you so much for reading! ThoughtsByPace is a ministry that seeks to make biblical concepts plain and practical for its readers.
There are 3 ways you can support!
SHARE
You can share by sending a link or telling people to subscribe. You never know who is in need of something to encourage them on their walk. Share with friends, family, the church lady with the hat, your nephew, your niece. Throw it in your group chat or drop a link on twitter. Anyone can benefit!
GIVE
This ministry costs.
In order to make sure we can continue to put out content and make it accessible, we depend on Your Donations. You can donate at any time with CashApp using the CashTag $ThoughtsByPace or contact us with the contact info on the site.
Thank you for your donations.
PRAY
This isn’t a business or a hobby or a fun thing to do on the side. We believe that this ministry is making an important impact on real people’s lives and that means the devil is going to try his best to stop it from getting to the people it needs to reach. Prayer is our way of fighting against those attacks.
Pray that this ministry will be used to bring people to a closer relationship with Jesus.
Again, thanks for reading. I pray this continues to bring you peace as we learn more about the good news that is Jesus in our everyday lives.
