The Law Of Sowing And Reaping

7 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, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
Galatians 6:7-10 (NIV)

This must be among the most repeated law in the Bible. I call this the natural law because it works at all times and for all people regardless of personal beliefs, race, culture and environment. This law is commonly known as The Law Of Sowing And Reaping.

The following are the characteristics of natural law:
1. It always works on you regardless of your faith in it.
2. It is neutral because it does not know the difference between good or evil.

So, if you use it for good, it will bring good into your life. If you use it for evil, it will bring evil into your life. The difference between those who believe in it and those who don’t is in their applications.

Those who believe in the existence of this law will tend to use it for their good. They will constantly sow the things the desire like health, wealth and success. As a result, they will reap the harvest of health, wealth and success in their lives.

In contrast, those who do not believe in this law will not bother to watch what they sow. Whenever they were influenced by the world around them, they will sow seeds of poverty, sickness and failures into their lives. As a result, they receive the harvest in kind.

This law is no longer a speculation. We can see its effect all around us.

Verse 7 begins by telling us not to be deceived because God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. This means anyone who denies the Law Of Sowing And Reaping is effectively mocking God. This is what the Bible says. Looks like God places a very heavy emphasis on this law. Logically, one will expect many churches to preach it.

Ironically, they don’t. Most churches would rather be deceived by the lies of theology than to believe in the truth of the Bible. The minority of churches who dare preach on this law are persecuted with labels like “prosperity gospel” as though it is not a part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

In fact, this is my way of screening out true churches. When I evaluate whether a certain church is a true church or a counterfeit, I always ask this question, “Has this church been accused of preaching the prosperity gospel?”

If the answer is “yes”, then there is a probability that this is a true church because it dares to please God despite the persecution. If the answer is “no”, then I can be sure that this is just another counterfeit that seek to please men rather than God. I will not waste time going there.

Verse 8 tells us that this law works both for the flesh and the Spirit. 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. It does not tell us whether we should sow to please the flesh or the Spirit because God assumes that we have enough common sense to choose eternal life, not destruction.

You can see similar patterns in the Bible. In many verses, God does not tell us what to do. He only gives us the result of certain actions. For example, he tells us that if we are greedy we will be poor but if we are generous, we will be rich. He does not tell us to be generous and not greedy. Why is that so? It must be in God’s personal opinion that we have the common sense to choose only the good things in life. He knows we will definitely choose to be rich and not poor. Since we want to be rich, we will want to be generous and not be greedy.

Therefore in Verse 8, God is appealing to our common sense to sow to please the Spirit because the benefits are great.

Verse 9 in an exhortation to us on not giving up. Read the verse again:

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

It begins by telling us not become weary in doing good. Why did he say that? The only logical reason is, not all our good works will produce good results immediately. If you have been living in the real world long enough, you must have realize that you can’t always see the desired results of doing good works. There were even times when we receive bad results from doing good works.

This is the problem Verse 9 is addressing. It basically says that we should not give up doing good just because we cannot see the desired results at this moment. Why? The second part of this verse says, “for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

The harvest will come at its proper time if we do not give up. Just because we cannot see our harvests, it does not mean that they don’t exist. God is working behind the scenes right now to prepare our harvests. Our roles as the recipients are to believe in his faithfulness, keep sowing our seeds and don’t give up. As long as we can hold our grounds, God guarantees us our harvests.

Once, we are convinced of this, we should do as Verse 10 says, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

Look for opportunities to do good because when we do good, we are sowing good seeds. We will reap good harvests. Someone may ask, “What is good and what is not?” The answer is simple. You decide. What are the things that you consider as good that you want?

 Do you think having a lot of money is good? If you do, start by sowing seeds of money by giving money to those in need.

 Do you think having good health is good? If you do, start by sowing seeds of health by helping the sick people to gain health.

What are the other good things that you want to have? Sow in kind by giving to others. God guarantees that you will reap harvests in kind.

This is what I like about the God of the Bible after I have discovered his true nature. God is not a ruthless dictator who blackmails us into behaving like mindless drones who will obey all his instructions without question, as propagated by the theology infested churches. That is theology, a lie from the pit of hell.

The truth is, the God of the Bible values our individual freedom. He gives up the choice to choose what we want. He only provides the tools for us to get what we want. The Law Of Sowing And Reaping is just a tool for us to use. He hopes that we can use it wisely.

Fulfilling The Law

14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Galations 5:14 (NIV)

How do you know you are in a religious church? The most obvious sign is, the preacher constantly remind the church members to obey God’s law, especially the 10 Commandments. There are still people who think the Christian life is centered on the 10 Commandments. This is obviously a heresy. If the 10 Commandments can save us, Christ died for nothing.

If you bother to refer to my previous postings, you can read a lot of my articles showing that the Law of Moses is no longer valid for Christians today. We do not have to try not to murder anyone if we do not have this intention in the first place.

The above verse tells us that as long as we love our neighbor as ourselves, we don’t have to bother about the Law. It is fulfilled in our lifestyle. We do not fulfill the entire law by keeping the entire law. We fulfill the entire law by keeping just one command, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Is this good or bad? The answer depends on what does the phrase “love your neighbor as yourself” mean.

What do you think of when you see the phrase? Are you looking for a list of things to do in order to qualify for it? Who are you going to ask for the list? Are you going to ask a church? Unfortunately, the Christian churches are so fragmented today that 100 churches will have 100 different lists on how to love our neighbors as ourselves.

In this article, I will give you a clear answer on what to do and it does not involve any to do list from somebody else. In fact, you are the one with the right to decide on the right actions to qualify. Let us begin.

The phrase, “love your neighbor as yourself” only has 2 principles:
1. You must love yourself.
2. Use this love as a measure to love others.

This first principle tells us that we must have a healthy respect for ourselves. God loves you so much that he gave his only begotten Son to redeem you. What right do you have to despise yourself or treat yourself with contempt? Always remember that if you hate yourself, you are insulting God. If you have been doing that, you should repent. Repentance means stop doing the bad things and move on to the good things. Stop hating and start loving yourself.

If you have been living a good and honorable life, that should not be too difficult. However, there are any people with a bad past. If you happen to be one of them, are you still able to love yourself regardless of the bad things you have done? Some people will find this an impossible task.

Let me make it simple for you. When Jesus died at the Cross, he took all our sins with him: past, present and future. As for the bad things you have done in the past, you have to tell yourself that you didn’t do them. Jesus did all those things and he was punished for it. God will never re-punish you for the sins that he had punished Jesus at the Cross. In the eyes of God, you are whiter than snow. You can face God as though you have never committed a single sin in your life.

Once, you are convinced of the above truth, you will have the freedom to love yourself. When that happens, you will find God’s blessings flowing freely into your life with increasing quality and quantity.

As a result, you will able to fulfill the second principle. Your love for yourself will be the foundation for loving others. Your love will be genuine. You will love others like Jesus loves you. This is what Jesus meant by doing to others what you want others to do to you.

How should you treat others? It depends on how do you want to be treated.

 Do you want others to help you when you are down? Start helping others when they are down.

 Do you want to receive a lot of money? Start giving others money.

 Do you want to live in your dream house? Start helping others to get their dream houses.

In short, whatever you want in your life, help others to get them. This is what Jesus mean by loving your neighbor as yourself. You write your own list. This is Christian living.

The Law Of Sowing And Reaping II

7Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
Galatians 6:7 (NIV)

This is a revision on one of the basic Bible principles. I am sure the above verse is quite familiar even among those who attend religious churches. This is where the phase “you reap what you sow” comes from.

However, most people use it in a negative way. All you have to do is to approach a Christian who attend any religious church and ask on the meaning of this verse. You will get a very negative answer. In case some may wonder how to classify any church as religious, I have a very simple way. Find out whether that church will ever be accused of preaching prosperity gospel. If the answer is “no” then it is definitely religious.

In this article, I am going to look into the Law Of Sowing And Reaping again as shown in the above verse. The writer began with warning his audience on not to be deceived. This implies that the recipients were deceived. There must be theologians in the church who spread the heresy that the Law Of Sowing And Reaping doesn’t work. The writer wrote in to expose such lie.

He went on to say that God cannot be mocked. This means the denial of the Law Of Sowing And Reaping is a mockery to God. So, if there are any well-intentioned Christians who tell you this law will never work, they are in reality mocking God.

Next, the writer affirmed on the law itself: A man reaps what he sows.

This is what I call the Law Of Sowing And Reaping. I am going to show you more details on this law and how to use it to get anything you want.

It must be put to work.
It is essential to believe that this law exists and always works. It is a natural law like the law of gravity. The Law Of Sowing And Reaping has the power to give us anything we want. It can give us abundant riches, good health, long life, successful career and any other good things God wants us to have. Believing in it is the first step we need to do.

However, believing along cannot make us rich. We need to put it to work by sowing something. If you do not sow, you will never reap the harvest. This is where works meet faith. This is what “faith without works is dead” really means. Start sowing.

Ask yourself what type of harvest do you want to reap. The sow the same type of seed.

The seeds must grow in the right environment.
Any farmer who knows his trade can tell us that we must create the right environment for the seed to grow in order to reap a huge harvest. In this regard, there are 2 issues that we must keep in mind in order for our seeds to grow until they can produce harvest – faith and tithe.

Apart from sowing, we need to water the seeds sown with faith. We need to think and talk positive.

1. Think and talk riches, not poverty.
2. Think and talk health, not sickness.
3. Think and talk success, not failure.

In other words, we need to exercise full control over our thoughts and speech. There may be many things out there that we cannot directly control. However that does not include what we choose to think and speak. God has given the complete control over our minds and tongues for a reason. The reason is our thoughts and confessions can create the world we want.

If you think and talk negative, you will live in a negative world. However, if you think and talk positive, you will live in a positive world. This is the system God has created. Our role is to take advantage of it to make our seeds grown into a huge harvest.

The other way to create the right environment is through tithing.

10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the LORD Almighty.
12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty.
Malachi 3:10-12 (NIV)

I have written a separate article on this topic at
(https://cheee.wordpress.com/2007/12/13/open-the-floodgates-of-heaven/)

We can sow ourselves out of every trouble.
The Bible has examples of people sowing their way out of their troubles. In 1 Kings 17, God sent Elijah to help a poor widow in famine. (https://cheee.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/a-rich-widow-in-a-poor-country/)

Elijah only did one thing. He told the widow to make some bread for him with her last handful of flour and a little oil at the bottom of the jar. He got her to sow her last food and she obeyed. As a result, she received an endless supply of flour and olive oil until the end of famine. She did not have to starve anymore. She had an abundance of food in the midst of famine.

Do you understand why this woman only received flour and oil? She only sowed these 2 items. Why did she not receive any gold? She did not sow any gold. Does this mean she did not get rich? This woman had a unlimited supply of flour and oil during famine. In a famine, any food like flour and oil can fetch very high prices. She could easily use her flour and oil to buy over all her neighbours’ land and become a real estate or a farming tycoon.

The message of this story is we can sow our way out of every trouble. If you have a money problem, sow the little money you have. If you don’t have a single cent, you can sow you prayer time or offer services to the people around you. You will receive a harvest of a lot of money coming your way. If you are sick, you can sow health. Help others to get healthy and you will receive a harvest of health.

Conclusion.
The Law Of Sowing And Reaping was created by God to help us to get anything we want. Our role is to put it to work.