The sowing and reaping principle

He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed... Matthew 13:31

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

6Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9As it is written:
"He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor;
his righteousness endures forever." 10Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. 2Corinthians 9:6-11

Based on these texts we see the Kingdom of God is based on a seed/sowing and reaping principle.

This is a breakdown of five key principles of sowing and reaping. There are other principles to entertain: Quality of soil, preparation of soil, quality of seed, tending the seed planted, and so on. A lot can be said for each of these.

The goal of this message is to address more of the outcome of the sowing and reaping as opposed to the full process from start to finish.

It’s important to note that these principles apply to every area of life, not exclusively to agriculture, finances, or whatever you might isolate it to. The fact is Jesus taught that this is the principle of the Kingdom of God, not a piece of it, but the whole thing. Every promise, every circumstance and issue, all of it!

Here are 5 key principles we need to understand.

1. You reap/harvest what you sow/plant.
If you want tomatoes don’t plant apple seeds. If you sow love, in time, you will reap love. If you plant material blessings, in time, you’ll reap material blessings. If you plant nothing, you’ll get nothing.

2. The degree/measure that I plant is the degree I will harvest.
The more seed I plant, the more plants will grow and the more fruit will be produced. One seed equals one plant, but usually more than one fruit grows on a plant, so the return on planted seed is a multiplied return, not just addition. God multiplies blessings upon us.

3. God’s plan is to make me abound (in context financially, but God intends for us to abound in all grace in every good work and this includes every area of life).
To abound means to go above. It means on a scale of 1 to 10, 11. Abounding means to exceed the need. In vs 8 we’re told God will cause “all grace to abound” (it’s His intention to exceed the need and provide richly for) so that we may “abound in every good work”. We’re told in vs 11, “you will be made rich in every way…” Rich meaning more than enough or abundantly supplied for, in every way. Whatever need I face material, physical, emotional, etc I will be richly provided for.

4. As the seed grows and produces fruit, remember that not all that fruit is for you to eat… within the fruit is more seed to plant and produce more!
It’s important to note that God gives us both seed and bread. Seed is for planting, bread is for eating. Note that God brings increase of seed first, so it’s increase for planting first then increase for consumption. Too many of us are quick to take the blessing of the Lord and consume it, but we’re eating our seed. This leads us back to principle #1, if I don’t plant anything I won’t reap anything. So, be prayerful and careful about blessings in your life. Why did God bless you in this way? Is the blessing bread to meet a need or want in your life or is it seed that God expects you to use to meet a need or want in the life of someone else? You can only answer this through prayer and discernment.

5. From planting to harvest is called a season. It takes time for seed to grow and produce fruit. It’s a process, not instantaneous.
We must understand that the blessing is not always an instantaneous result. Often times there is a season involved for the seed we’ve planted to grow, mature, and become fruit bearing.

Impatience will rob us of the fruit/blessing. Impatience will see no immediate fruit and say, “This isn’t working!” “This takes too long!” “This is too hard!” and quit. We get impatient and angry and we abandon the seed (watering it with our faith and praise), or we’ll cut down the fruitless plant before it’s season of fruit bearing. The bottom line is our impatience and lack of faith/trust in God robs us of what would have come to us in due season. We get angry at God about it, but who’s to blame? Not God, not even the Devil, it’s me! My own self is to blame, no body else.

Take the time to consider how these principles apply to your relationship with God, spouse, parents, children, friends, neighbors, co-workers, classmates, even your enemies.

Take the time to consider how these principles apply to your health, wealth, and so on.

The Test

2Corinthians 13:5 Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you – unless indeed you fail the test?

I read these words and they make me very uncomfortable.

Depending on the translation you read some have the words “examine yourself” first in the sentence while others have the words “test yourselves”, either way it’s unnerving.

Let’s break this statement down before getting to the meat.

To examine something is to make through inspection, leave no rock unturned. It’s a serious and focused look, not some casual glance.

A test is a tool to answer the question: do I know or can I perform enough to qualify. Am I really the real deal? Am I really a 10th grader, am I really a Green Beret, am I really a mechanic, am I really a follower of Christ/Child of God? Tests answer these questions and more.

We’re called to thoroughly inspect/examine our lives and to test ourselves to answer a very important question… am I in the faith.

Of coarse for some, they’ve never put Jesus in charge of their life and don’t claim to follow Him, so the answer is easy and obvious, but this scripture wasn’t written to non-Christians. It was written to followers of Jesus. This is important!

The fact we, as Christians, are told to test and examine ourselves to make sure we’re in the faith points toward a reality stated at the end of the verse… we can fail the test. It points to the reality that no matter how sincere and perfect we started out we can get off track/stray and end up outside of the faith.

Proof: Look at the story Jesus told to illustrate how the condition of people’s hearts determines their overall response to the truth of God’s word and it’s affect in their lives.

Luke 8:11-15 11 “This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. 12 Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. 14 The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. 15 But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.

This same story is found in Matthew 13:1-23 and Mark 4:14-20. I encourage you to familiarize yourself with all three versions of the story, because there is some details that each brings out that are worth noting.

According to this story Jesus teaches that not everyone will turn to good/ accept the word of God in their life. In fact, Jesus tells us about 25% of the people we share with will not accept it. (Hard soil along the path)

Well, 75% isn’t bad. Right? Wrong. Another 25% (Stony ground) will hear it and accept it but their commitment is shallow and because of their “what’s in it for me” attitude when hard times come because they follow Jesus they will abandon ship.

So, 50% of the people we share with, in the end, will not live for Jesus.

Well, that still leaves us 50% to respond to the truth, experience the life of God, and go to heaven! Right? Wrong.

Another 25% (Thorny ground) will believe and follow until something better comes along. They don’t cease to believe, but they don’t make following Jesus the number one priority in their life. They will focus most of their time, energy, thought, and effort toward the accumulation of things and experiencing a variety of pleasures that this life has to offer. While they believe in Jesus, it is these things that are priority to them and these things that they live for.

So, 75% of the people will be of no value to God in the advancement of His Kingdom here on earth. 50% in the big picture will not believe and live for God and another 25% believe (and may go to heaven), but produce no good fruit.

The final 25% (Good Soil) is the only soil that will actually have long-term deep commitment and will produce large quantities of fruit, thus personally experiencing the life of God and being of value to God in the advancement of His Kingdom here on earth.

Even in this final 25% there is variance from one person to the next on just how productive they will be.

I had some questions based on 3 scriptures to test themselves and examine their life with. They were: 1) Do I seek God first above all other things? 2) Do I Know God’s word, do I believe God’s Word, and do I do God’s Word? 3) Am I becoming more and more like Jesus in thought, word, and deed?

But, I want to provide another tool to test us and evaluate our lives with… this story from Jesus. WHAT SOIL ARE YOU?


It seems like it would be an easy question, but take the time to study the attributes, qualities, and characteristics of each soil, their experiences, their responses, their results.

I’ve done this study and am going to post it in the document section of this website.

I encourage you to take the time to figure out where your heart/life is in relation to following Jesus faithfully and experiencing the life He’s planned for you.

It’s important that the test isn’t made up by the ideas or opinions of some guy. Let God’s word be the source and standard of our test.

Take the test! Be honest. How are you doing? Are you all you thought and said?

You are not taking the test so you can be condemned, but so you can have an accurate diagnosis on how healthy your relationship with Jesus is, an evaluation on how well you are running your race!

The whole point of this evaluation/test is to find the areas of weakness and make improvements! Not see how bad we are and quit.

We want to know where we’re missing it and how, so we can correct the issues and really experience the life God promises us in Jesus and be all he made us to be.

God is gracious, merciful, compassionate, slow to anger, rich in love, forgiving, patient and He is on your side. He wants you to win! He’s cheering you on and believes you can do it, you have what it takes, just don’t loose sight of the fact we are all human and have weaknesses and tendencies to stray, so we’ll need to make corrections regularly.

The Difference

I was having a conversation with a friend that led into the fact that the average stay of a youth pastor in a church is under 2 years and the average stay of most pastors is somewhere between 3 and 5 years, but the other reality is that the longer a minister stays at a ministry the more effective they and the ministry become.

So, we have an obvious problem, but interestingly it’s not a problem isolated to ministers and ministries. It’s a problem across the board of life.

The key issue is commitment/perseverance.

In America we are used to immediate gratification, instantaneous results, fast food, fast cars, fast relationships, fast money, microwaves, instant potatoes, you name it, and we face the same problem… less than great/best results.

Very few have learned what many of our grandparents knew to be true… persevering hard work pays off. They knew nothing is easy, nothing is perfect, and so you have to commit, work hard, endure the bad and enjoy the good, but above all… persevere.

In the lives of many people, if the relationship gets too boring or tough and requires work and sacrifice and discomfort, then we just get rid of it, and we apply this same principle to our work, church, and our relationships with God, family and friends.

Not only has our “microwave mentality” affected our commitment to long-term results, but so has another aspect of our society, namely the “disposable mentality”.

Very few things are built to last. It used to be if a TV, computer, or VCR broke, you would pay to have it repaired, but not any more. Now days, you just trash it and go buy a new one. Why? Because we all know that today’s products are not built to last, they don’t have the same quality as the products of our grandparents. Therefore, it’s cheaper and wiser to just buy a new product than pay the money to have the cheapo outdated product repaired.

This “disposable mentality” has also crept into other areas of life. If a job or relationship doesn’t seem to work right, doesn’t run smoothly, or down right gets broke, we just throw it away.

The effect of these two mentalities is tragic and catastrophic in our nation and around the world in industrialized nations.

First, we are a selfish people committed only to our personal happiness, comfort, pleasure, and so on. No one and no thing is more important than me and thus we live in a world where everyone is consumed with looking out for number one only.

No rule, relationship, or anything else is more important than trying to fulfill me and therefore, nothing is sacred, nothing has my devotion/commitment, anything can be broken.

If I’m not the center of the attention, if this thing doesn’t revolve around me, then it’s not real, has no value, and doesn’t have my persevering commitment.

Second, we are people who are shallow and have no depth/fulfillment in life. Because we break things off every time they don’t center on us, gratify us, or work out smoothly we have nothing in life to anchor us to reality or life in general. We are a people with no roots… no roots in our job, our relationships, our faith.

Thirdly, we are broken people. With so many people being the “discarded” in life, the one’s not worth the time and energy, we have a lot of wounded, broken, and empty people. Not only that, but by our brokenness we are a dysfunctional people who don’t know how to have fulfilling relationships, jobs, and faith. We don’t know how to stick with it, how to question and communicate without feeling that “fight or flight” mentality kick in, and how to accept that no matter how strong the relationship with another person their world does not revolve around just you, it’s not all about you. They have other people in their life that they love and care about too, and this reality doesn’t mean they love less, or are less committed, or that the relationship isn’t real and should just be trashed.

This brokenness not only effects our commitment in relationships, it effects our commitment to work, our commitment to personal health, our commitment to good stewardship of all God’s blessed us with.

So, the key… Choice!

Choice of what? Choose to commit unwaveringly to the things God has called you to; your relationship with him and those around you, your stewardship of your person and your material wealth, your work, you name it.

Have a persevering attitude. Not a quitter attitude. Don’t embrace the “Immediate Gratification Mentality” or the “Disposable Mentality” when it comes to the important areas of your life. Understand that a good experience and quality living in the area of relationships, wealth, health, and faith come through time, hard work, and weathering the storms and not giving up; in a nutshell the difference is… perseverance/commitment.