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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
“Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of
unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord,
until He comes and showers His righteousness on you. But you have planted
wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception.”
Hosea 10:12-13a
This ends today’s
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
“You reap what you sow.”
You’ve probably heard someone say this at least once.
The saying has its roots in the scriptures and this passage
from Paul’s letter to the Galatians:
A man reaps what he
sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction;
whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
Galatians 6:7b-8
These verses connect to an analogy based on farming. For
what you reap or produce in life will be dependent on what you sow or what you
do, just a farmer’s harvest will largely depend on the seeds that he sows to
begin with.
If a person sows righteousness, then they will reap a yield
of holiness and a life that the Lord favors. But if someone sows sinfulness,
then they will produce wickedness and evil in the way they behave, acting in
ways that displease and dishonor God.
These truths are central to today’s devotion as we look
again at these verses of Hosea 10 as God discusses the spiritual state of His people.
Look again at these words here:
“Sow righteousness
for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed
ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, until He comes and showers His righteousness
on you. But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten
the fruit of deception.” Hosea 10:12-13a
First, we find what the Lord desired for His people in Hosea’s
day and what He still desires for us today.
For we expected to sow righteousness in the way we live,
planting the seeds of right living in God’s eyes, seeds that are planted when
we are obedient to His word, will, and way, seeds that are planted whenever we
seek the Lord and His direction and guidance.
But unfortunately, that’s not what the Israelites were
doing. Not even close.
For the people of God had sown wickedness through their
sinful worship of idols and so their harvest was the evil produced by their
transgressions.
What led to this inclination to live in iniquity instead of
righteousness?
The word of God tells us it was because the Israelites ate
the “fruit of deception”, fruit that tricked them into believing that their
actions were not really sinful but perfectly acceptable. And interestingly
enough, this wasn’t the first such instance like this. You may recall this one:
Now the serpent was
more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the
woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the
serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You
must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you
must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not
certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat
from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and
evil.”
When the woman saw
that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also
desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to
her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them
were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together
and made coverings for themselves.
Then the man and his
wife heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden in the
cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.But
the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
He answered, “I heard
you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And he said, “Who
told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you
not to eat from?”
The man said, “The
woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Then the Lord God said
to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The
serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Genesis 3:1-13
Adam and Eve were the first to be deceived by the fruit of
deception and unfortunately, as we see in the lives of God’s people in Hosea’s
time, they weren’t the last. Satan, you see, is a full time deceiver and always
working counter to what the Lord is trying to do in our lives. Jesus would go
on to call the enemy what he truly is, the father of all lies (John 8:44), a
truth that simply makes him the great deceiver and sower of fruits of
deception. And when we partake of the deceptive fruits that Satan sows, then we
will always reap sinfulness, wickedness, and evil, just as the Israelites did.
So given all this, the Lord would present each of us with a
very important question to ponder:
What are you sowing in life, righteousness or wickedness?
The answer will indicate who is dictating and directing your
life.
For if you are allowing the great deceiver to sow fruits of
deception into your life, then your harvest will be transgressions and malevolence
But if you turn your life’s devotion and attention toward
the Lord, then you will reap the rewards of living in the Lord’s righteousness,
and reap a life that is right and just, a life that makes a difference in the
lives of others as you fulfill the Lord’s purposes daily.
Amen
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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