Plant Good Seeds and Reap From It

 

“Israel is like a trained heifer treading out the grain—an easy job she loves. But I will put a heavy yoke on her tender neck. I will force Judah to pull the plow and Israel to break up the hard ground. I said, ‘Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that He may come and shower righteousness upon you.’” (Hosea 10:11-12)

In the same way an ox loves to eat the grain as it engages in the labor of working the ground, as Christians, many of us love to learn. We love to hear the Word and eat from it. We are willing to follow along with our transformation where it feeds us and makes us comfortable.

But as we eat and eat, we begin to grow lethargic and complacent. This is because what we reap, is what we sow out of. If we only eat of the treaded grain, we reap minimally. The Lord confronts this kind of complacency. In Isaiah 47:8 He says, “Listen to this, you pleasure-loving kingdom, living at ease and feeling secure.”

Part of growing in our Christianity is the work of allowing the hard ground of our hearts to be plowed up. It is death to self and the ways that we would like to do things. Rather than following what we love and makes us feel comfortable, we allow God to take us down a laborious path that leads to our freedom and transformation. We must pick up our cross and die daily.

Planting good seeds of righteousness, we will reap abundantly a harvest of love for others. I was just recently talking with the wife of our previous CEO where I work. We were taking down a tent after having an incredible time serving the drug addicts and homeless in the Minneapolis community. The night went so well. As the tent came down, she had told me stories of how her husband had sowed his own tent and later received the one we had used as a donation. She spoke of how they lived for years on the edge of making it to be obedient. While their lives may seem easy now, they are reaping the fruit of the sacrificial sowing that they planted for years. From it, there is a harvest of love. We had several addicts receive Christ and desire to change their lives. Their lives were changed, but they don’t know the years of sacrifice that brought everything to that point.

In choosing to pick up our cross, dying to ourselves and sacrificing for others, we are planting seeds of righteousness that will eventually bear a great harvest of love. The Lord spoke to me recently that every time we chose to love someone that we are giving Him presents. How sweet is that that our labor of love deeply blesses Him.

Part of genuinely loving involves sacrifice for them. It is ultimately not our following all the rules and trying to get everything right, or even fasting that blesses Him like loving others sacrificially. We need to constantly look out for the best interests of others. As we follow Him in laying down our lives so that others may have life, we are sowing seeds that will reap a harvest of love.

Sometimes our attempt at loving others is more about people pleasing. This is manipulation and flattery, it is not genuine love. With this, our focus is on pleasing the other person and not God. Accommodating others when it hinders them or avoiding difficult conversations lack genuine love. We have to keep our eyes on God and His best for them to genuinely love them well.

In flattery, people will speak things with the intent of manipulating someone to get what they want from them. This lacks both sincerity and also making peace. It is using someone for your own interests. Ultimately people know when there is a lack of genuine care and one is being manipulated. It becomes a withdraw and breaking of trust rather than a deposit.

We are not to do anything out of trying to impress others, ambition to get ahead or airing our own opinions in superiority over others. Rather, in humility, we die to these things and value others above ourselves. (Philippians 2:3)

Elevating and even holding opinions is one of the things that can hinder us in loving others well. They might not be directly against someone, but holding them typically excludes people. We see this with political parties. When one feels they are supporting the “right” party and the other party is “wrong,” there can be a tendency to objectify and pass judgement on others who do not agree.

Not holding an opinion is a spiritual practice that can grow us in love and understanding of others. Proverbs 12:15 says that it is fools that hold to their own opinions while the wise listen to others. Proverbs 18:2 says, “A fool does not delight in understanding, but only in airing his opinions.” And, 2 Corinthians 10:5 says that we use spiritual weaponry to destroy lofty opinions and human reasoning that will separates people from knowing God.

Opinions can cause people pain and separate us and others from being able to see God. When we have opinions, we are making judgments. We are viewing from the outside as someone is wrong and usually it starts with us by having a log in our own eye. Rather, when we hold back our opinions and seek to understand, we open ourselves up to Wisdom.

Having opinions may lead to offense. When our opinions are not validated or are crossed, we become more focused on being right. They form the perspective of how we see the world. This then limits our ability to truly see and understand others.

I can see how I have caused harm with holding an opinion. I once led a group on helping people manage their finances. However, I held an opinion that finances should be managed a certain way and people should strive to be debt free. I could see how this opinion could be limiting as it lacks first understanding and seeing people individually. Misunderstandings happen when we hold to opinions over people.

Having no opinion starts with holding one’s tongue. The tongue can get us into trouble if we do not carefully control it. David cries out in Psalm 52:2, “Your tongue cuts like a sharp razor; you’re an expert at telling lies. You live evil more than good and lies more than truth. You love to destroy others with your words, you liar!”

With our own tongue, we can bring death and destruction to others as well as back onto ourselves as we reap out of what we sow. With our words, we can misconstrue situations, share our opinions that hurt others, and directly cause harm to others.

Our tongues can also speak life. It is a little rudder that directs our lives. With it, we are to praise God, rejoice and being thankful. David says in Psalm 51:15, “Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth may praise you.”

Often, we struggle between both blessing and cursing with our tongue. James 3:8-11 says, “No human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water?”

How do we know when we are off course, James 3:17 says that the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. It is rooted in love and sown in peace by those who make peace.

Our perception can be misguided and we do not realize it. We often do not know what is going on in someone else’s life or understand them. One of the biggest reasons for differences is that we have not sought first to understand their position. Rather, we want them to understand ours. Especially with family, we think we know but fail to really understand and love them well.

Fortunately, we have the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. If we will humbly look for Him to lead the way and trust Him, he will help us navigate through and get better understanding. He will help us grow and stretch as our hard ground is broken up and turns into rich soil of love that is well watered.

The key is to walk humbly with God. We need a resilient spirit rather than a resistant one. Pride always causes resistance and offense. Instead of being open handed in wonder, we become tight fisted in our way. When we notice that we are offended with others, pride is probably rooted in there somewhere. Pride will cause us to stumble and even fall.

Others challenging us can bring pride to the surface. How we respond to being challenged matters. We can respond humbly with an open heart, curiosity and perspective that we might be wrong. Or, in pride, we can insist we are right, demand our rights or point out the faults and weaknesses of everyone else.

Difficulty and being challenged bring pride to the surface. When we are offended and discouraged because of a situation, it is often because we are holding to an outcome that is rooted in control and pride. We want to see things go our way and have our way. We are not surrendering the situation to God.

When we experience difficulty and our weaknesses are exposed, it is uncomfortable. Besides taking control, demanding and becoming offended, one way of dealing with this is to quickly cover up our short fallings and pretend they don’t exist. We hide and put on a front. This is rooted in wanting to get it all right.

How we need to deal with being challenged, is to say, ‘You might be right, tell me more’ or ‘I could be wrong on this.’ How we need to deal with our weaknesses, is to say to ourselves, ‘I’m not surprised as I have weaknesses but I am loved by God in the midst of them.’ Then as we see our wrongs, we don’t want to cover them up but repent and ask for God’s help to change. This is the way of humility.

Humility is realizing we all miss the mark at times, but it doesn’t make us less valuable. Humility is being willing to change, be wrong or just be silent and realize we don’t have all the answers. Humility is following the way of wisdom that says whatever is encouraging, edifying and good for others is the best direction to go.

Holy Spirit, have Your way in our lives. Break up our ground that is hard. Where we are off course, guide us back on track. Help us with our relationships and loving others well. Quicken us when we are holding to our own opinions and perceptions. Help us to sow righteousness so that we can reap a harvest of love that is rooted in your peace.