TV commercials for prescription drugs are so amusing. The visuals depict a positive, peppy person living a happy, healthy life with sunny skies and smiley pets. 

Meanwhile the narrator races through a list of nasty side effects.

Jesus teaches us about the risk of side effects as his followers living in a world that doesn’t follow him. He not only warns us about the risks, but he takes the responsibility for the risks himself. 

Do you encounter unbelievers at work? Do your children experience an unbelieving, ungodly influence at school, not just from students but the education system itself? Do you struggle as you observe the corrupt immorality spreading through media?

Dangers of unbelief and evil lurk so near, right next to us like weeds growing next to crops in a field. But Jesus owns it all. He wants interaction between wheat and weeds, between believers and unbelievers.

“The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom” (Matthew 13:37,38). Jesus himself plants the good seeds of wheat. That’s you and all believers. 

You are who you are and where you are not by accident or a couple lucky breaks or a bad streak of luck or entirely by your own personal choice. 

Jesus planted you in just the right place in his kingdom, right where he wanted you in this world. Right next to unbelievers who need you.