Day 5: Reap what you sow!
I cannot tell you how many times I have heard Galatians 6:7 quoted by my parents while I was growing up.
Galatians 6: 7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
Or in layman’s terms, you reap what you sow. Normally, I heard this quoted right before the harvest of my rottenness was coming in the form of some stern discipline. Usually that was a swift and painful stinging of the backside. I sowed actions that deserved discipline and most of the time I reaped the discipline.
This was the understanding that Paul was trying to get through to the Galatians in Galatians 6:7-9, so let’s look at the rest of this section of the letter.
Galatians 6: 8 For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
Paul is challenging the church at Galatia and the readers of his letter to put in the good works and kindness to those around us so that we can reap a harvest of positive impact on our fellow believers and people coming to Jesus from our labors!
So far in our devotion times we have spent them be surveying and examining our environment and the focus of our minds and our souls to move us to a place where we will sow and reap a healthy spiritual bounty! If you cannot tell just through the analogy of gardening or farming, those things are hard! It seems like farmers have a system down for the corn and beans, but I tell you what, if you try to plant vegetables in your back yard, it takes hard work to produce the crop! The same goes for our spiritual harvest, it takes effort. The longer I live, the more I understand how vital our spiritual environment really is. It takes self-control, self-denial, self-sacrifice to put ourselves in a place where God can show up and show off in our lives!
You see the analogy and correlation with the harvest and our spiritual health all through scripture. I actually believe Paul learned his words that he spoke to the Galatians from the Old Testament in Hosea when God was speaking through His prophet.
Hosea 10: 12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.
So that we can get the full understanding, or practical application for our lives, let’s do the bible study breakdown of this passage.
Sow for yourselves – The effort is ours to sow, or be active in
Righteousness – the quality of being morally right or justifiable.
Reap steadfast love – The fruit of actively living righteous is reaping steadfast love – the 1 Corinthians 13 type of love.
Break up your fallow ground - It’s time to cultivate the land that had been left uncultivated for a period of time, usually one or more growing seasons. It's an agricultural technique that allows the land to recover and store organic matter. It is an analogy God is using to tell them it is time to return to the state of heart – righteousness and steadfast love – that He has called them and us to.
For it is time to seek the Lord - It is time to turn from the ways things have been and return to our relationship with God.
That He may come - His Presence will show up
And rain righteousness upon you - He will see the work of righteousness completed in our hearts. We cannot obtain this level of righteousness on our own apart from His presence in our lives.
The entire purpose of our 21 days of prayer and fasting is to break up the crustiness of our spiritual lives, move towards God in our actions and focus, and allow Him to complete the work in us through the presence of His Holy Spirit. Now is the time to seek the Lord! Lean into your prayer time today and seek His sufficiency when the cravings of the fast begin to hit! We are sowing seeds of righteousness that I know He will turn into a harvest of righteousness and steadfast love in our lives!