REAPING GOD’S BEST
1 Corinthians 3:6-9 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase.
[7] So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.
[8] Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.
[9] For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.
Hebrews 12:1b
let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,
When I was a little boy, I would often help my dad work the fields planting and picking during harvest time. Planting was always very laborous and by the end of the day your back was screaming at you and you were dead tired. This was the most interesting time to me out of all the work we did farming the fields. When planting, be it seeds or seedlings, you would always plant one or two more plants or seeds than you needed in case some didn’t grow. After a few weeks, you would go back and pull out the extra ones, always choosing the weakest of the bunch leaving the strong plant to bear the fruit for that season. The rest were tossed aside because they were no longer needed. They were only a backup plant. It was a very heart wrenching process for anyone who takes pride in their planting and my dad never took short cuts.
One day, I asked my dad about it because it seemed like such a waste of a good day’s work that had gone into planting them in the first place. He was quick to explain that if we didn’t take out the extra plants, then the growth of the strong plant would be restricted and would be limited. Too many plants in one area will limit growth so the excess must be removed. The plant that was to be left would need the room for growing and spreading out if it was going to yield a productive fruit for the farmer. Unless the extra was weeded out, the strong plant would never reach its full potential. The extra plants would only take nutrients and water from the soil never being able to give back.
Weeding is necessary in our spiritual lives as well. If we are ever going to reach our full potential for the Lord we must learn this application used in farming. We must be willing to uproot and extract everything in our lives that hinder us from yielding fruit for the Lord! This is what the farmer does and what we must do as well. Oftentimes we prioritize our lives so that we don’t miss the good, all the while missing the better! We can be doing a good work or service for the Lord and still miss God’s best. Even doing a good deed or work can cause us to miss God. Christian friend, we can be about the Lord’s work and miss the Lord altogether. Good works are not necessarily God’s work for you. When HIS calling for your life is first and HE is the center of your life, HE will take care of the rest. We must trust the Lord with this.
The stress and pressures of everyday life can and will choke out our spiritual growth unless we learn to weed them out and lay them aside. When God is first, there is peace of soul. Whatever the Lord has called you to, whatever gifts HE has given to you, HE fully intends for you to be using them. Never does the Lord tell us to do HIS work on OUR time schedules and only if we can fit it in. The Lord calls us immediately, instantaneously to serve HIM! It’s a reckless abandonment of all else, which means Jesus comes before all. We will stand before the Lord one day, all by ourselves, with no excuses and no support, and give an answer to this one question; “did you finish the work I gave you to do”? What will be your answer on that day, dear friend? What is in your life today that is crowding you in, keeping you from reaching your full potential in the Lord? What steps are you willing to take to correct them? Most of us have things we need to uproot and cast away. It is my prayer today, with the Lord’s help, you are willing to weed out all that is crowding in on the Lord’s work through you. OH, the harvest HE has for us to bring forth upon our fields!
Bro. Lawrence Longworth
Isaiah 61:1 “the opening of the prison to them that are bound;”
Comments