Weed & Feed, Let The Old Man Die

Monday Morning Blog: “Letting God Get Detailed With Fine Correction”

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By Richard Gazowsky

A few weeks ago Sandy and I were walking through Home Depot because she mentioned that she wanted to get rid of the weeds that were growing in our back yard.  We talked with a couple of the local experts and decided upon a product that would take care of the weeds and would also help the healthy grass to grow.  Being faithful to the instructions, we put the product on the grass.  Today, as I was leaving the house, my son, Sunny, who had just finished watering the lawn, came up to me and said, “Dad, you know what?  The product you put on the grass really works.  But the reason our lawn still looks so bad is because it was mostly all weeds and there wasn’t much grass there.  So, in essence, everything had to die.” 

When Sunny said those words it put an exclamation point on everything else the Lord had been telling me about my life, and even to what I had been teaching the church at Bible study.  It was the simple fact that sometimes, if you are going to get the weeds out of your life, you are going to have to die to everything.  In Romans 7, Apostle Paul uses an insightful example when he describes a woman who was married to a man.  When he dies, for her to take on a new husband in marriage she must completely be dead to the old husband because if she lets any part of the old husband remain she becomes an adulteress to her new husband.  I was surprised to see that the apostle was using such a shocking allegory to explain a very important spiritual truth to us, which is simply:  when God tells you to change something in your life you cannot compromise by embracing a portion of the old and a portion of the new at the same time.  This is poison that will bring about failure.

I see this often happening in churches, and especially with worship music.  God suddenly takes the congregation to something new in worship music and they begin doing so.  But then a few people in the congregation go up privately to the worship leader and say something like, “Don’t forget the old songs from the past.”  They might even take Scriptures out of context and comment, “Doesn’t the Bible say, ‘Don’t forget the ancient landmarks?'”  But like I said, that Scripture doesn’t even apply to the situation.  Jesus is telling us that we had better forget everything of the old and completely embrace the new or we take the risk of not advancing with Him.

O wait, let me just quote Jesus Himself:  “Any man having put his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God.”  That is about as plain as the nose on your face.  God is telling us that there is no room for compromise.  When God puts something new in your life, it is wise to completely embrace it and cut off the old ways, let them die, and do not even think about them again.

This may sound to most of us as ruthless, uncaring, and not wise.  But the wisdom of God is as high above our wisdom as the heavens are above the earth.  So though it may not flatter your ego, make intellectual sense, or comfort you, my advice is to do it.  I mean, how many chances do we have in our lifetimes to really obey God?  The Lord’s great visitation to our lives may only happen every thirty or forty years, like Israel.  They had a chance to cross over into the Promised Land but they missed it by literally one day.

So it is in your life.  When God sprays His new fertilizer on your grass, realize that all the weeds are going to die.  That might mean every single thing in your life that is growing right now is going to disappear.  Wow!

This seems like a steep price to pay, but believe me it is worth it because then every new seed that God plants in your heart is not going to be choked by the mistakes of the past.  Let God work His miracle in you.  It will bring about incredible breakthroughs if you let everything new live in you unfettered by the past.

Jesus reminded us that no one takes an old cloth and sews it into a new garment; and that no one puts new wine into old wine skins because the new wine burst them.  It has all got to be new.  Just like you can’t fit an old worship song in a new worship service, you can’t take an old concept of business and put it into God’s new business plan that He is giving you.  Yes, everything must be “Born again.”

This is a weekly email written by Richard Gazowsky, Pastor of A Place To Meet Jesus church in San Francisco. If you would like to opt-out from this weekly email, simply click on the SafeUnsubscribe link below.