Seeds of Discrepancy

There’s a phrase that’s stayed with me for years because it names something I’ve watched happen in real time—in churches, in culture, and even inside my own heart. I first heard it framed this way through a major prophet passed down through others to me on a truth that penetrated my heart: “the seed of discrepancy.” 

And the reason it hits so hard is because it doesn’t describe “obvious evil.” It describes something far more dangerous: a contradiction that grows right beside the truth, looks close enough to be convincing, and slowly trains people to live at odds with the Word while still sounding spiritual. 

Jesus warned us this would happen.

In Matthew 13, He tells the parable of the wheat and the tares. A man sows good seed in his field. But while people sleep, an enemy comes and sows weeds among the wheat. At first, it’s hard to tell. Everything grows together. Only when the plants mature does the difference become visible. Then the servants ask the obvious question: “How did weeds get here?” And the owner gives the simplest, most sobering answer: “An enemy has done this.” (Matthew 13:28). 

That one sentence exposes a spiritual law: not everything growing in the same field came from the same hand.

And when Jesus interprets the parable (Matthew 13:36–43), He pulls the curtain back even further. The field is the world. The good seed represents the children of the Kingdom. The tares represent the children of the evil one. The enemy is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age. And the separation belongs to heaven’s reapers—not human opinions, not religious labels, not denominational sorting. 

So here’s the question that burns in me: What kind of “seed” is able to grow near truth without being immediately detected?

The answer is discrepancy.

Discrepancy is contradiction. It’s “contrary.” It’s discord sown into what God already spoke. It’s not always a blatant denial; sometimes it’s a subtle addition, a slight twist, a spiritual-sounding edit. It doesn’t show up wearing a red suit and carrying a pitchfork. It shows up quoting Scripture while quietly cutting the nerve of Scripture. It shows up saying, “Yes… but not like that.” It shows up saying, “That was for then.” It shows up saying, “God surely didn’t mean you have to obey that part.” 

And this is why discrepancy is so deadly: it trains people to disagree with God while still feeling religious.

From the beginning of the Bible, we see two seeds vying for dominance. In Genesis, Abel offers what God requires, and Cain offers what he prefers. Both worship. Both build. Both bring something to God. But only one carries revelation, obedience, and blood. The other carries self-will—and jealousy is the first fruit that shows up on the branch. Then murder. Then hardness. Then wandering. The first public “religion” in Scripture is not atheism. It’s worship without submission. It’s offering without obedience. It’s spirituality that refuses correction. 

That same pattern runs like a scar through biblical history.

Noah stands as a voice of God in his age, but the world is filled with violence and corruption. Moses stands with a revealed word and a vindicated commission, yet Israel is continually tempted by a “we’re all the same” compromise—the kind that sounds peaceful but actually poisons covenant. The prophets call people back to the Word, and the people repeatedly drift back to mixture. Then in the New Testament, Christ is the Word made flesh (John 1:1, 14), and He confronts discrepancy everywhere: traditions that cancel commandments, worship that is sincere but misaligned, religion that honors God with lips while hearts remain distant.

Jesus says something chilling in Matthew 24:24: deception in the last days will be so close that it would deceive even the elect, if that were possible. 

Not “far away.” Not “obviously ridiculous.” Close. Similar. Near enough to fool people who don’t stay anchored.

That’s why I’m convinced the seed of discrepancy is one of the enemy’s primary strategies in our hour. Not because he can stop God’s Word from being true, but because he can distract God’s people from living inside it. He can whisper, “You don’t have to take that seriously.” He can whisper, “That standard is extreme.” He can whisper, “That promise doesn’t apply to you.” He can whisper, “That miracle age ended.” He can whisper, “That’s not for today.” And the tragedy is that many believers never realize they’ve agreed with a contradiction until they start reaping the harvest of it—weakness, compromise, confusion, prayerlessness, and a faith that has language but no fire. 

Let me say it plainly: the enemy doesn’t have to remove the Bible from your house if he can remove the Bible from your confidence.

And this is why the Word has to be the absolute truth in every circumstance—not my feelings, not my preferences, not my personality, not even my “mercy gift” when mercy becomes permission to ignore what God said. Because God’s mercy never contradicts His holiness. God’s love never edits His truth. God’s compassion never cancels His commands.

Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” That doesn’t mean a lack of information. It means a lack of knowing—a lack of living in truth so deeply that deception feels foreign. When I’m not grounded, I become easy to sway. When I’m not anchored, I become negotiable. When I don’t love truth, I start calling compromise “wisdom.”

But the seed of discrepancy is exposed in one simple way: fruit.

Jesus says you will know a tree by its fruit (Matthew 7:16–20). In the parable, the wheat and tares grow together, but maturity reveals identity. And this is one of the most sobering realities of spiritual life: time doesn’t just pass—it reveals. What’s genuine eventually bears the nature of God: humility, holiness, love, endurance, obedience, purity, spiritual power that points to Christ. What’s counterfeit eventually bears the nature of self: pride, control, compromise, hidden sin, doctrinal arrogance, division, or a constant need to be seen.

This is where the conversation becomes personal, because it’s easy to talk about “two seeds” as if they only operate out there—in false systems, corrupt movements, cultural darkness. But Scripture doesn’t let me off the hook that easily. Romans shows me something uncomfortable: there is a war that can happen within a believer when the flesh tries to partner with the Spirit’s language while refusing the Spirit’s lordship. There is an inner tug-of-war where two voices compete: the Spirit who says, “Submit,” and the flesh that says, “Explain it away.” There is a war where my spirit is hungry for God, but my soul wants comfort, control, and predictable outcomes.

So I don’t just ask, “Is discrepancy in the world?” I ask, “Where has discrepancy tried to plant itself in me?”

Where have I believed God for certain promises, but quietly made peace with disobedience in other areas?

Where have I wanted the anointing, but resisted the sanctification that carries it?

Where have I quoted Scripture, but used it as a shield against conviction instead of a mirror that changes me?

Because discrepancy can look like this: I want God’s power, but I don’t want God’s process. I want answered prayer, but I won’t forgive. I want breakthrough, but I won’t obey the simple instruction. I want peace, but I keep feeding anxiety with what I watch, read, and rehearse. I want revival, but I won’t let the Holy Spirit confront what I’ve normalized.

And here’s the line that separates wheat from tare inside the human heart: revelation produces obedience. Discrepancy produces debate.

One of the things that stands out in the material that shaped this theme is the image of rain falling on both the wheat and the weeds. The same rain. The same environment. The same outward blessing. Yet the nature of what’s growing is not proved by what it receives, but by what it becomes. 

That convicts me, because it means I can sit in an atmosphere where God is moving and still remain unchanged if I’m only consuming presence without surrendering to truth. I can shout. I can sing. I can feel touched. But the question is not, “Did I experience something?” The question is, “Am I bearing fruit worthy of repentance?”

Now let’s talk about how discrepancy spreads, because this isn’t random. The enemy is strategic. He sows while people sleep. Sleep in Scripture often symbolizes spiritual dullness—prayerlessness, complacency, distraction, a loss of watchfulness. When believers stop watching, stop discerning, stop testing, stop praying, stop reading the Word with hunger—contradictions slip in like seeds in the dark.

And the enemy rarely begins by denying the whole truth. He starts by altering the edges.

He convinces people that God’s Word is negotiable.

He persuades them that “interpretation” is a substitute for obedience.

He trains them to trust trends over truth.

He lures them into defining Christianity by a label instead of by a living union with Christ.

He whispers that holiness is legalism, that separation is pride, that conviction is condemnation, that Scripture is outdated, that obedience is extreme.

And the more those ideas are repeated, the more “normal” they start to feel. That is the nature of seed: it’s small at first. But it grows.

This is why I refuse—by the grace of God—to treat the Bible like a menu where I select what matches my appetite. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Every word. Not just the parts that fit my personality. Not just the parts that match my culture. Not just the parts that don’t cost me anything.

Because discrepancy always costs you something—eventually.

It costs you clarity.

It costs you power.

It costs you intimacy.

It costs you authority in prayer.

It costs you spiritual sensitivity.

It costs you discernment.

And sometimes, if a person hardens themselves long enough, it costs them the fear of the Lord—until they can no longer tell the difference between conviction and criticism.

So what do we do? We don’t panic. We don’t obsess. We don’t become suspicion addicts who see demons behind every disagreement. We do something far simpler, far stronger, and far more biblical:

We return to the Word as our defense.

Not as a prop. Not as a sermon resource. Not as a debate weapon. As our defense.

The Word is not just information—it is seed. And every seed brings forth after its kind. If I plant truth in my heart, truth will grow in my life. If I plant compromise, compromise will grow. If I plant the fear of man, the fear of man will grow. If I plant faith, faith will grow. If I plant offense, offense will grow. If I plant prayerlessness, dryness will grow.

So I ask myself: What am I planting daily?

What am I watering?

What am I feeding?

What do I allow to preach to me when I’m not in a service?

Because discrepancy doesn’t always come through “false teaching.” Sometimes it comes through a slow diet of entertainment that numbs holiness. Sometimes it comes through constant outrage that kills compassion. Sometimes it comes through cynicism disguised as “discernment.” Sometimes it comes through woundedness that refuses healing and calls bitterness “boundaries.”

And the only way to uproot the wrong seed is to starve it and replace it.

This is where the Holy Spirit becomes essential. Because the Spirit doesn’t contradict the Word—He quickens the Word. He makes it alive. He makes it personal. He brings it from ink on a page into fire in the bones. He convicts. He comforts. He corrects. He empowers. He leads into truth (John 16:13). And where the Spirit is honored, discrepancy is exposed—not through paranoia, but through light.

So I pray like this:

“Lord, if I have agreed with anything contrary to Your Word—knowingly or unknowingly—expose it.”

“Lord, show me where I have been spiritually asleep.”

“Lord, restore the fear of the Lord in me—not fear of punishment, but awe that refuses to play games with holy things.”

“Lord, give me the love of truth.”

Because here’s what I’ve learned: you don’t overcome deception by being smarter. You overcome deception by being surrendered.

And you don’t defeat discrepancy by arguing with it. You defeat discrepancy by refusing partnership with it.

That’s why I want to be a person who carries a simple, non-negotiable foundation: God said it. That settles it.

Not because I’m arrogant. Not because I can’t learn. Not because I think I have perfect understanding. But because I know what happens when God’s people begin to treat His Word like a suggestion. The gates come down. The enemy sows. And later, people wonder why they’re confused, powerless, dry, bound, offended, weary, and spiritually numb.

This is also why the parable ends the way it does. Jesus doesn’t say the wheat and tares will be separated by clever arguments. He says the separation comes at harvest. And when harvest comes, the righteous shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13:43). 

That means God knows how to finish what He started.

But until then, I want to be found faithful.

I want to be found watching.

I want to be found loving the truth.

I want to be found obeying quickly.

I want to be found humble enough to be corrected.

I want to be found full of the Holy Spirit—not a form of godliness without power, but a living witness of Jesus Christ.

And I want to say something to anyone reading this who feels the weight of the hour we’re in. If you’ve been sensing that things are “close,” that deception is increasing, that compromise is being celebrated, that biblical clarity is being mocked, that holiness is being edited, that the Church is being pressured to blend—listen to me:

That pressure is not proof God has abandoned you.

That pressure may be proof the harvest is near.

It may be proof that what is genuine is being called to maturity.

It may be proof that you’re being trained to discern.

It may be proof that the Holy Spirit is sharpening the Bride.

So don’t yield to fear. Yield to truth.

Don’t yield to cynicism. Yield to the Spirit.

Don’t yield to mixture. Yield to Jesus.

He is not confused. He is not intimidated by the hour. He is not threatened by culture. He is not nervous about the future. He is the Lord of the harvest.

And if you will stay planted in His Word, if you will refuse the seed of discrepancy, if you will keep your heart tender and your hands clean and your eyes fixed—God will make you fruitful in the same field where deception tries to grow. God will make you steady in the same generation where others become unstable. God will make you bright in the same hour where darkness tries to masquerade as light.

So I’m asking the Lord for something simple and fierce: a heart that cannot be bought, a mind that cannot be bent, and a spirit that cannot be dulled.

Because I don’t just want to be near the truth. I want to be wheat.

I don’t just want to sound right. I want to be real.

I don’t just want to survive this hour. I want to shine.

And I believe the Lord is calling many of us back to this: not a new message, not a trendy idea, not a fashionable spirituality—but an ancient foundation, an unedited gospel, and an uncompromising love for Jesus Christ, who is the Word made flesh.

Let him who has ears to hear, hear.

And let every seed in me that is not from the Father be exposed, uprooted, and replaced—until the only thing growing is what heaven planted. Much love.