The point of these blogs is to give you something to share at dinner, at Upward Basketball, Children's sermons. anytime when you have to give a short devotional. Usually object lessons hold people's attention better and are more easily remembered.
" Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. 8 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. 9 Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people" Gal. 6:7-10
If you have ever heard the expression, "You reap what you sew", it is taken from this verse in the Bible. The point is, if you are doing bad things and being bad to people you can't expect life to be good to you. On the other side, if you do good to everyone and live a good life you can expect good to come your way. Is that the way it is though? How come some of the richest people in the world are tyrannical and the salt of the earth just found out they have cancer? Life is not fair (see Psalm 73) So is this passage wrong?
Take this apple for example. Cut it in half. What do you see? Seeds. Now if I plant this seed in good soil and water it what will happen? It will grow an apple tree. How many years until I can eat an apple off of it? About 10 years! That is a long time. Now looking at this verse, Paul is warning us not to become weary in doing good because at the proper time we will see results. This is true about bad deeds and good deeds. Evil people may seem to be prospering but eventually their life will fall apart either in this life or maybe not until the judgment day. Good deeds will eventually pay off either here or maybe at the judgment seat of Christ. If this life is all we have, as Paul would say in 1Cor. 15, we as Christians are most miserable.
Along with this we have the example of Christ. Jesus says in John 12:23-25 "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. 25 Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
Jesus was that seed that died, was, buried, and through raising to life has given life to many others. Do you think God thinks the growth is slow? Yes! 2000 years later He is seeing you and me growing and sprouting. Some day He will harvest all His fruit when the last tree grows.
Have you received the seed of Christ into your heart? If not, you are producing bad fruit or at best fake fruit and someday when the harvest comes you will be left behind. If you have received Christ, you need to grow Jesus fruit. How does that happen? Like Christ, we need to die to live. We must decrease and He must increase. Represent! And don't make Him wait, and wait.....
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