Lent: a time to ponder worms or weeds.

Don’t let the weeds of compromise choke out your glorifying virtues.

Spring is upon us. Time to think about readying that garden. I’m working on mine. It’s not much: a few herbs here, some tomatoes in pots, there. Even more reason that I’m spending more time this year with soil prep—composting, to be exact. I want rich soil, minus sneaky weed seeds that can slip into the dirt. The right environment, free from contaminants, is important especially if you’re growing a small garden and …a small company or a small church, or any church for that matter during this time of Lent—Latin for Spring—a time for looking inward for spiritual reflection and looking forward to spiritual renewal and growth. That’s why a pastor I heard about used a clever “show and tell” to make this point to his congregation so they would get it.

He took four cans and put a worm in each can. First, he put a worm in the can full of whiskey; he put a worm in the second can full of cigarette smoke; he put a worm in the third can full of chocolate. He put a worm in the fourth can full of rich dirt.  Then he preached on love. At the end of the sermon, he opened up the cans to show the congregation. The worm in the whiskey can was dead: the worm in the cigarette smoke was dead; the worm in the chocolate was dead. But the worm in the good soil was alive. Then, he asked the congregation what they learned. Marge, the cranky, hard living elderly woman who always sat in the back, raised her hand. “I learned that if you drink, smoke and eat chocolate, you won’t get worms.  She missed it.

Without the right environment, compromise—like weeds—can crop in and choke off blessings and the life of a church like the Church at Thyatira. How will God judge the growing, yet, compromising church? That is the question facing you and Thyatira in Rev. 2:18-27, one of the seven churches in Asia Christ evaluated. There were weeds in Thyatira’s Garden. Are there weeds in your life?

First, keep growing in the right environment, Christian virtues that make you the Church Christ is looking to pick from. Thyatira, like a garden with the right environment, was growing in Christian virtues. We see that in verse 19: love, faith, service, and perseverance.

Every gardener has expectations. I will plant tomato plants this spring. I expect tomatoes this summer. Christ is no different. He expects organic Christian virtues.

Church, as you look within yourself this Lenten season, ask, “How does your garden grow?”, not “With silver bells and cockle shells and Pretty maids all dressed in a row,” as the nursery rhyme goes. Christ is looking for more than ornaments, but organic, living, growing, Christian virtues worth picking.

Second, keep out the compromises that can choke out Christian virtues of a growing faith Thyatira let compromise, like a poisonous weed, invade their garden. We see that in verses 20 and 21:

But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bondservants astray...Rev. 2:20,21

That weed was a woman within the church—like Jezebel—who influenced the church to compromise, to operate like the world to make a profit like the world. But the church is called to be “holy as I am holy”, not be profitable as I am profitable. Don’t compromise for the “dollar bill, y'all. Make it rain.” Repent. The weeds of compromise will choke your blessings out.

Finally, for the Church who holds on to virtue, you can look forward to the promises of better blooms.  We see two promises of blooms who holds on to virtue. We see that in verses 25-28: authority to rule and glory to shine. First, Christ promises a future shared authority to rule over great inheritance in the New Heaven and New earth according to Psalms. 2:8,9. Second, Christ promises the church who holds on, a shared glory as bright as the morning star. As Christ is the “bright and morning star” of Revelations 22, so are you. You are already His lampstand—a beacon to the world. But some day you will be a full revelation and glory. 

Until then, be the brightest bloom in the garden so that when the world sees you, you reveal Christ. Be the light that sits on a hill that cannot be hidden under a bed. When the world sees you struggle, yet overcome, you shine as a beacon for others who suffer, who want to be overcomers as well. Be the star that you are now. Hold on and bloom. Lent is more than 40 days of giving up something. It’s also about what you gain: glory.

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Share a story of a growth of forgiveness in a life dealt an injustice--A Forgiving Fire at Aforgiving.com.