REAPING AND SOWING

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

2 Corinthians 9:6

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

You get out of life what you put into it.

Maybe you have heard this phrase before.

In essence, it means that gaining something requires a person to actually do something to earn it.

Through my many years of military service and leadership, I used a variation of this theme to try and encourage service members to strive for excellence in what they did every day. Here’s what I used to tell them:

Minimum effort will usually produce minimum results. People who find success invest themselves in doing things that lead to that success.

It’s a principle I lived by and one I think many others did (and still do) as well. I know the service members who took it to heart and applied it discovered the truth found in it.

Well, this matter of putting into something to get something out of it is biblical as well. In fact, we could say that the genesis of our modern thinking on the matter happened in the scriptures for it’s there that we find the Apostle Paul writing these words in the sixth verse of 2 Corinthians 9:

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

As we often see in the Bible, agriculture is used as an illustration in order to drive home a teaching point. Cultures in the Old and New Testament were very agrarian in nature and so it made sense that teachers like Jesus and Paul would use examples that a majority of their students could relate to.

Everyone would know that if you only plant a little seed, you will only harvest a small crop. Conversely, if you sow seed generously then you could expect the harvest to be robust and hearty.

In other words, you reap what you sow.

When we apply this to ministry work, we see the ante upped exponentially. I say this because there is a lot at stake. It’s not about how much we lose or gain by the way we carry out the Great Commission but rather how much Jesus, our Savior loses or gains. When we sow the Gospel sparingly, we get sparse results in regard to souls that get saved. However, when we get outside of ourselves and fully invest in others for the cause of Christ, then we can make a kingdom difference by reaping an abundance of people who choose to believe in Jesus, and in doing so, gain eternal life.

One could probably say that the fundamental work of sharing the Gospel is one of sowing and reaping.

How well are you doing in this area?

Are you sowing the Gospel scarcely, failing to be effective in the work Jesus called you to?

Or are you fully dedicated and devoted to the Gospel cause and reaping a harvest of saved people who come to receive the gift of eternal life through the labors you invested?

I pray you are in the latter category but if you are in the former, now is the time to change things. Jesus stands ready to use you in bigger ways to produce a greater harvest of the saved. All you need to do is surrender yourself to Him and allow Him to lead and guide you to carry our His will and way.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com