Weeds in a Dixie Cup

by Pastor Chris Williamson

I looked at my grass yesterday and determined it was time to give it the first cut of the season. What clearly stood out to me about my grass (and probably to my neighbors!) was how many different kinds of weeds I have growing in my yard. Due to changes in my household budget, I had to stop paying for my lawn service. However, I now see the importance of what that company does in the off-season like never before.
To my dismay I had purple weeds, white weeds, green weeds, and yellow weeds all over my lawn. As I cut the weeds down yesterday, my mind went back to my childhood. When I was a boy I would pick “flowers” from our yard and give them to my mother. Little did I know the flowers I picked for her were actually weeds! I didn’t know it at the time, but in my five-year old mind I was showing love to my mother and giving her the best that I could give.
I would get Dixie cups and fill them with dirt. Then I would uproot white dandelion and yellow buttercup weeds in order to plant them in the cups. After that, I would march into the house and proudly and lovingly present these gifts to my mother. My mother would always receive my offerings with great joy and appreciation. I would leave her presence feeling good, knowing that I just made her feel good. Looking back in retrospect, she never told me that what I gave her were weeds in a cup. Mom simply received my gifts because she saw my heart.
Friends, when you and I worship God and show Him our love, our best offerings to Him are like weeds in a Dixie cup. Though we are redeemed sons and daughters of God by faith in the blood of Jesus, we are still fallen individuals. Therefore, our best efforts towards Him are still riddled with defilement. The Apostle Paul once said, “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me (Romans 7:21).” Evil is present with me because evil is still in me, that is, in my flesh. This means that on my best days and in my best spiritual moments, I still fall short of God’s glory.
This also means that the Lord will not receive perfect, flawless, and pure worship from me until I get to heaven (Revelation 4 & 5), but until then, He lovingly looks past the weeds still present in my heart and life and receives my feeble worship. Even though my heart is not perfect, God sees how it is bent towards Him and not away from Him.
The good news is that God accepts our weeded worship because of His grace, mercy and love for us. As a result, let’s be sure to get our Dixie cups filled today with the best offerings we can possibly give to our King because He is worthy!
 
POSTED: April 1, 2014