Who is the Boss? Worry and Wealth will Wreck Your Heart

Image by Ashish Choudhary from Pixabay

In Matthew 13, Jesus tells a parable about sowing seeds. The seeds fall on different soils. These soils represent the heart’s spiritual condition, and your heart’s state will determine if you can hear God speak. This blog will focus on the third condition, the soil full of weeds and thorns. This is the third in a series on Matthew 13. You can read the first here. And the second one is here.

Thorns Drain the Heart

In the third soil of the heart, Jesus describes a soil invaded by weeds and thorns. He names those invaders as the worries of this world and the deceitfulness of wealth. In the battle for who has our hearts, Jesus repeatedly returns to the love of money. One of the most famous examples was when a wealthy young man approached Jesus. The rich man had kept all the commandments, but the one sacrifice he could not make was to get rid of his wealth.

Jesus understood the mental, emotional, and spiritual drain that occurs when we spend our time worrying about if we have enough and the other part of our time trying to get more. Having wealth means comfort, control, and self-sufficiency. Or so we think. The deceitfulness of wealth robs us of the fruit we could produce when we practice humbleness by yielding control and relying on God.

Who’s the Boss?

When our bank accounts are full, we feel as if we are ready for anything. We are in control of our lives. In America, we prize self-reliance. We treat poverty as a moral issue. You must be lazy or caught in a cycle of sin if you are poor. So is Jesus telling us to eliminate our wealth just like He told the wealthy man? Maybe. If wealth is causing spiritual heart disease in your life, then yes. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world if he loses his soul? The question is not whether you have too much money or stuff but whether you love money more than you love following Jesus.

There is only room for one master in our hearts. And the love of money (the one Jesus talks about most, but the love of anything other than Jesus) will rule your heart when allowed to grow without limitations. To set up anything as more significant than Jesus in our hearts is idolatry. Wealth is insidious because it is so revered. People in Jesus’ day and our day continue to see great wealth equal to great blessing for God. The American culture of capitalistic consumerism is built on the very ethic that having better and more stuff is the ultimate goal of life. Is it any wonder that when American Christians go on mission trips to foreign places, they find people who are poor materially but much richer in their relationship with God?

Daily bread

When Jesus teaches His disciples to pray, He teaches them to ask for their daily bread. Not for enough bread for today and tomorrow. The prayer reminds us that regardless of our financial situation, we still depend upon God’s grace. For Jesus’ disciples, they would have immediately thought back to the Exodus, when God provided manna from heaven. The people were only to collect enough for one day because they were to trust that God would provide the next day again. Of course, God’s people disobeyed and gathered more, but the excess spoiled in the jars overnight.

Getting rid of the thorns that drain our hearts is not about being poor in possessions or empty bank accounts. No, it is a staunch declaration that we will maintain our dependence on God. Whether we have much or little, we will trust in God, and our energy will be spent knowing Him and making Him known. We will devote energy to producing the good fruit He calls us to grow. Take some time this week to meditate on where you have thorns and weeds hiding in the soil of your heart. Then pray to God and ask that He help remove them.