Choked by Thorns

The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature

Luke 8:14

I once asked some of my bible students, If they were to choose between one million dollars ($1M) and one million bibles, which would they choose? None of them chose one million bibles, they all chose one million dollars. The truth is, with one million dollars, they couldn’t even buy one million Bibles. Conversely, if they had chosen one million Bibles, even selling them for just three dollars each, they would have tripled their money. Why didn’t anyone consider this simple maths? Well, that’s the deceitfulness of riches. 

Jesus mentioned the deceitfulness of riches as one of the three thorns that can choke the word of God to death in a man’s life; the other two being pleasure and worry. 

Worry competes with faith for your time and your very life-force. It strangles your relationship with God and the growth of the Word in your life. While worry may plague the poor, riches themselves are no cure.

We worry because of the things we don’t have, hoping that having them will take away the worries but when we eventually become rich, wealth becomes the basis of our definition and losing it is now equal to losing our very existence. At this point, we suddenly realise that those who own much have more to fear. Suddenly we’re back into anxiety. Worrying like the poor despite our wealth. 

To console ourselves, we then turn to pleasure. That when you begin to hear things like ‘you can only live onces’, ‘enjoy your life today because nobody knows tomorrow’. Those are statements born out of anxiety. It is what people say when their hope is not really in God but mostly in material things. 

Jesus says clearly to his disciples that the pleasure principle will surely choke out his life in us and make our lives spiritually fruitless and barren. Has that happened to you or someone you love? What if Jesus actually took you up on your vow of discipleship, and asked you to do something that called for self-sacrifice and difficulty in order to serve him. Would you be able to say “yes,” just like Zacchaeus did and parted with half of his resources in one day or would you avert your eyes, like the Rich Young Ruler (Luke 18:23)?

There is only one way to escape being choked by thorns, “…You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37 CEB). 

PRAYER

Lord, help me to hear your Word. But help me also to withstand the devil’s attempts to snatch it away. May I become wise to his schemes and stand against his activity. Let your living Word take root within me and grow to bear fruit!