Harvest

This is from the blog Daily Meditation:

Job 24:6: They reap every one his corn in the field: and they gather the vintage of the wicked. (KJV)

The harvest is the culmination of all efforts in a planting season. Every farmer looks to the harvest. His labour is informed by the hope of harvest. Therefore, whatever time, resources or effort you put into your relationship with God will yield the harvest of increased expression of God through you, and stronger and better relationship with him.

Paul said that he plants and Apollos waters but it is God who gives the increase, bringing forth the harvest. His and Apollos’ efforts as fellow workers with God are based on the hope of harvest in the lives of the people, in the needed changes in their lives (1Corinthians 3:6-9).

Jesus described his life as a seed; saying except a corn of wheat falls to the ground and dies it abides alone; after it is sown, it brings forth much fruit (John 12:24). His life as a seed sown in the death on the cross brings the harvest of harvests of souls into the kingdom of God.

The psalmist says he plants the word of God in his life so that he will bring the harvest of righteousness. The sowing in the word starts a process, and the change within us is the harvest.

It will be a sad situation when there is the scarcity of the seed of Word of God. It happened in the time of Eli, when the bible says that the word of God was scarce and there was no open vision (1Samuel 3:1). There was spiritual starvation, since the word of God which was scarce is seed. If the seed is scarce, there will be not much planting going on and there will be starvation.

We need the word as we need food, with Job saying that he loves the word of God more than his necessary meal (Job 23:12). In the same way, we should recognise our intense need for spiritual sustenance from the word of God (Matthew 4:4).

The bible says that as the earth remains seedtime and harvest will not cease. So if we do not sow the word there will be no harvest of enhances spiritual blossoming.

There is more labour and time involved in the sowing and the processes leading up to the harvest than the harvest itself. Therefore between sowing and harvest we need endurance and patience. The bible says that we should follow those who through faith (the initial response to the promise) and patience (continued response to the promise) obtained the promise (Hebrews 6:12). When the promise (the word of God) was made that was the seedtime, when the realisation came, that was the harvest. The harvest does not immediately follow the sowing; there is a time lag involved. Nevertheless, harvest is inevitable as we continue being hopeful (Hebrews 6:17-19). (Both faith and patience emanates from hope [Hebrews 11:1, Romans 8:25, 1Thessalonians 1:3]). That will keep us on the path of doing what is needed to have a good harvest. Without hope, even after the sowing, there will be no harvest.

In another place we read: do not be weary in well-doing because in due season you will reap if you faint not (Galatians 6:9). Therefore good deeds are seeds sown in which there will be harvest. It is the same with hospitality; the bible says that we should take hospitality serious because some have entertained angels unawares (Hebrews 13:2). That was how Abraham got the harvest of a son he had been looking for decades. He sowed the seed of hospitality, entertaining God and two angels, and had the harvest of a son from his aged wife Sarah, against the natural course of things (Genesis 18:2-10).

Harvest speaks of return on investment. We invest out time, our resources and our actions; because these three are common to all humanity, everyone has something to sow for a desired harvest. You can change the pattern of your life by changing the pattern of your sowing. The meritorious, circumspective and judicious investment of those three, will count for better harvest of in our lives. We can either invest them by effort or by default, either way the harvest is inevitable; for better or worse.

Time

Jesus said I must do the work of him who sent me while it is day because the night comes when no man can work (John 9:4). There is time for everything, the time to sow and the time to reap.

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-2). But if we don’t use the time to sow well, then there will be nothing to reap. We need to sow into having rich relationships with those closest to us. We need to sow into developing ourselves. It is recorded that those with better education have better lives. So the time put in studies (or developing skills) is sowing time and the harvest will definitely come in the future, when the time of sowing would have past and we have come to the time of reaping. There is the time when we have the opportunity to make certain investments; afterwards such opportunities will not be there again and you are left with regrets, and a shallow feeling from missed opportunities.

Resources

Everyone have resources to sow. For example, there are mental resources. Jesus said that everyone should be careful about what you listen to, how effectively you hear will determine the harvest it brings into your life (Mark 4:24). Your capacity for something grows by the attention you give it and the depth of attention you give to what you hear will determine the resultant effect in your life. Jesus would say: let him that has ears let him hear what the Spirit says to the church (Revelation 2-3).  The capacity to give attention to something is one of our human resources.

The bible says: guard your heart with all diligence because out of it flow the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23). The heart is the centre of desire, and desire is a seed that will bring in the harvest either of sin or of righteousness. That is why we are told to beware what sort of desire start growing in our hearts, and focus on guarding hearts so that the wrong desire seed will not be planted there (as we avoid wrong associations [1Corinthians 15:33, 2Corinthians 6:13-18]), while we should actively cultivate the right desire-seed (through right associations [Hebrews 10:24-25]).

Sin, we are told is merely wrong desire (to please self) that has grown and developed to the point of harvest, while the harvest of righteousness comes from the desire to please God (James 1:13-16).

What about finances? That is a resource that we have, and the measure of the money-seed we sow is linked with the level of the harvest of financial abundance (2Corinthians 9:6). When the church in Philippi sowed their resources into the life of Paul, in turn he prayed for them: my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:15-20). By meeting his needs he told them of the inevitable harvest of God meeting their every need. What they did was sowing, and the harvest was coming.

Action

Every action is a seed. That is the sense behind the phrase: practice makes perfect. Every action is a seed for the harvest for a better performance. Every piece of writing is a seed for better writing, every seed of a musical performance is for an harvest of a greater performance. Every journey of a thousand miles starts with a step, every writing of a thousand words stated with a letter, those steps and those words count towards an end- the harvest.

What you say is a seed that can bring an harvest; that is why Paul said that we should let our words be seasoned with salt, ministering grace to the hearers (Ephesians 4:29), the effect in the life of the hearer is the harvest.