When I was working in my flower garden pulling out weeds, my thoughts regarded the weeds as unwanted guests. Weeds are the enemy in my garden. They are never wanted, never invited, and is a thorn in my side. No one likes to deal with weeds, and weeds must be rooted out, or they will out compete with my flowers.
Weeds are aggressive and often are quicker than plants at reproducing and spreading. They steal and rob the moisture and nutrients from the plants. Weeds grow rampantly. The best way to get rid of them is knowing how to identify them. The number one rule with weeds is, you never let them take seed. But as Christians how many weed seeds do we allow to take root in our lives? Those weeds are choking out our Spiritual fruit. In your spiritual garden, are you nurturing and watering weeds or Spiritual fruit?
Scripture tells us the difference between fruit and weeds. Galatians 5:22-24 says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires." We should be investing in these types of fruit, because anything else are weeds.
Scripture also helps us identify what are weeds, "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God" (Galatians 5:19-21).
Whatever you nurture and water will grow. If you are nurturing weeds, they will choke out the fruit. Weeds hinders fruit from maturing. Jesus explains to us in Matthew 13:22, that the the seed that fell among the thorns, who was the Christians that heard the Word of God, but the cares of this world and its deceitfulness of wealth choked the Word, making it unfruitful. These things are weeds.
Our Spiritual life is a sort of flowerbed or garden, and like all flowerbeds and gardens, there will be some weeds that will pop-up in our lives. We all must deal with some type of weed management. How? By identifying the weeds and pull out all weeds in our life. Weeds are acts of the sinful nature. Colossians 3:5 says, "Away then with sinful, earthly things; deaden the evil desires lurking within you; have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust and shameful desires; don't worship the good things of life, for that is idolatry."
Weeds are destructive! So pull out the weeds! They damage our Spirit and choke-out our faith, our Spiritual motivation, and causes us not to focus on Spiritual things.