Great thoughts Doug Eaton
Day: October 30, 2019
Sowing and Reaping
“Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till He come and rain righteousness upon you.” Hosea 10:12 (KJB)
Well I am back. I never really went anywhere; just felt I needed to take a break from this blog, and focus on some other things.
The following is from a former post back in May of 2013. It is just a portion of that dealing with verse 12 of Hosea 10.
“The “Fallow ground” of verse twelve is land that had previously been plowed, but now left unused. God’s Word and His Spirit is the plow that is needed to break up the soil of a hard heart (See Matthew 13:3-9, 18-23). Hard hearts cannot yield crops of righteousness and mercy.
It is a prominent theme in Hosea that the children of Israel will reap exactly what they have sown. It is a law of God’s created order to reap what we have sown – and that, no matter the timeline, culture or society which we may live.
Hosea gives us three steps to heal the land:
- Break up your fallow ground (v. 12);
- Put God’s Word in your heart – “sow with a view of righteousness” (NAS v. 12);
- “Reap in accordance with kindness (NAS) referring to the breaking of their hard hearts through repentance and sowing the seed of God’s Word in their lives.
God gives Israel every opportunity to repent. It is God’s desire then to cleanse them, and make them a vessel of His grace. Judgment would come.” From BROKEN PIECES of May 04, 2013
There is a very relevant need for Christians of 2019 to realize the seeds we are sowing. We are in the time of year where in the agricultural world there is harvesting going on. That does not happen by accident. The farmers sow seeds to bring in a harvest, and when God blesses with good soil conditions, and rainfall these men and women have a great harvest when the time of harvest comes.
They sow seeds of what they desire to harvest. They desire to reap a harvest like the seed they have sown; and they will not reap any other type seed.
There is a real life lesson for us in this and it is found in the apostle Paul’s letter to the Church of Galatia…
“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Galatians 6:7-8
The only fruit worth the harvest is the fruit we bear because of Jesus Christ through His death, burial, and bodily resurrection. We can only do that through faith in Him; faith that works; not for salvation, but because of salvation by grace.