On Sowing and Reaping

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.  Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. – Proverbs 4:23-24

The heart includes what we generally call imagination, the visions, desire, inclinations, and plans – the things we wish for, hope for, and dream about. 

We all know that Jesus said, in Luke 6:38, “Give and it shall be given to you.”  It is a favored quote before the passing of the offering plate in church.  I do not dispute the truth of it.  It is a law of the cosmos as certain as the motion of the planets.  It’s just not limited to money.  The Lord says, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.   Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.  For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”

Whatever measure – thimble or five-gallon bucket – I use in dealing with the world, God will use in repaying me.  And whatever it is I put in the bucket, God will return to me according the law of the harvest  … some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.  That is great if I sowed corn, not so great if I sowed lies and deceit.

The old saying is that you can’t cheat an honest man.  That’s not a one hundred percent guarantee, but it is a good general rule.  An honest man neither expects nor desires something for nothing, which is most usually the basis of a con.  It is thus much harder to cheat an honest person, and the cheat never really gets away with it while the honest won't suffer too much.  After all, the truthful are sowing the seeds of truthfulness.    

Avoiding the slough into which so much of the world seems to have sunk begins with garrisoning the heart and imagination with truth and righteousness.  The world is big on “authenticity”, but we need not embrace and celebrate the corruption of the old nature.  We should rather seek alignment with the new man, since … you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:1-3)

If I am too worldly perhaps it is because I have set my mind too much on the things of the world.  Are my thoughts like old hens that go out and pick through the barnyards dropping all day then come back to the roost to drop their own at night?  If I am constantly confronted by misunderstanding, misinterpretation, mistrust, rejection, loathing, anger, deception, or fear, is it possible that I am sowing those things? 

Of course, this world is not a bad place except for the people.  They are all sowing stuff, too.  I can’t do a thing about them.  This is where the St. Francis quote applies -- instead of worrying about changing the world, I am free to change worlds.  My family may be a bunch of conniving, twisted control freaks.  The people at work may be ungrateful, greedy, demanding jerks.  But I don’t have to work for them.  Everything I do, I may choose to do as “unto the Lord”.  It is the Lord for whom I work; it is the Lord from whom I receive.  Let others sow as they will.   Only I can prevent my harvest of righteousness.

Dead Reckoning

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. -- Romans 6:11

I have noticed this recurring element that is related to all my problems and troubles in life:  me.

Paul seems to offer me a solution to me  -- the problem of me.  All I need to do is consider myself, account myself, reckon myself dead to sin, which is, for my old nature, dead.  I have been crucified with Christ, right?  There’s just one small stumbling block.  How does a dead man reckon himself dead?  On the one hand, it seems ridiculously pointless in a Sixth Sense-ish kind of way.  On the other hand, it seems impossible.  What, are we Schrödinger’s Cat?  Just open the box.  Or, if you really want a dead cat, leave the box closed long enough, and you’ll have it. 

I don’t seem dead.  I know dead people, and more all the time, and, if you put me alongside one of them, I think you could tell the difference.  Or maybe not.  You could certain tell the difference between me and a dead body – although, after I have been working in the sun all day, not necessarily by the smell.  The body is not the person.  Really, the main difference is that the dead are no longer visibly engaging the material world.  They are cut off from it because they have left their bodies behind.  Now I’m not interested in the opinions of those who believe that this life is all there is.  I am confident that those who have departed live still.  They are dead only in relation to this world (though their influence upon it can and does continue, unquestionably in some modes, arguably in others). 

Thus to be dead to this world is to cease to allow it to control me, to abandon its ways and its paths, it standards and methods and means.   I reckon so.

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.  And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses … (Colossians 2:11-13)

Paul here says that we were dead but now we have been made alive.  Can the man make up his mind?  I have to admit, though, that this being “dead to God” sounds right.  I can remember that.  I can remember when I could care less if I did wrong so long as I got away with it.  I had my standards, of course, but that’s just it, they were my standards. 

There are two approaches to Christianity, almost, I would say, two kinds of Christianity.  There are people who simply need some hope and help in their lives, a way to straighten up and do good instead of bad.  The Lord does not reject these people, and, looking through the various letters of Paul, James, John, and Peter to the various churches, it is clear that He cares about them.  Then there is a second group who begin to abandon any concern with their own lives and seek to live by and for Christ alone.  These two categories are neither fixed nor mutually exclusive.  We all, from time to time, have to concern ourselves with the affairs of life in this world, if only for the sake of those around us (I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.  But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account).  Most of us also have moments when we sincerely want to do God’s will regardless of the cost.  

“Reckless endangerment” is a crime.  “Reckless abandonment” is, or should be, the mark of a saint.  I have been able to place some aspects of my life entirely in God’s hands.  I don’t worry or fret about those things, between 99 and 100% of the time.  I would like to be able to abandon everything to God in a like manner, for my life to be entirely hidden in Christ.  All we really have to do is have faith, believe, right?

A lot of people are good at believing at a distance.  Close quarters believing is scarier.  Believing the truth is harder than it looks.  I don’t really believe it if I don’t abandon myself to it. 

Unexpected Anticipation

Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at Your presence — as fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil —to make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence!

When You did awesome things which we did not expect, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence. — Isaiah 64:1-3

"You did awesome things which we did not expect". Isaiah realized that while God was not ripping open the material heavens and invading earth like a super-warrior, He was ripping open the "sky" of Isaiah's conscious mind and pouring Himself into the world through the prophet and his words.

The Incarnation is the ultimate manifestation of God's invasion for the rescue and redemption of humanity. It, too, was an unexpected and awesome thing. Certainly Christ's entrance into the world has made the mountains — often a metaphor for worldly powers — and the nations tremble and quake. The world has been in an upheaval since Christ came to bring — not peace, but a sword and a winnowing, purging fire. And that will continue until the Kingdom is all in all.

I was taught that the 'world' as such would get worse and worse — more sinful, more violent, more anti-God, and specifically more anti-Christ until, at some point, Christ would return in secret to snatch out His people. Subsequent to the removal of the Bride, God's wrath would consume the unrighteous in terror and judgment. Though I have my problems with Dispensational eschatology, there is truth in this view. There can be no doubt that a separation of the righteous and the unrighteous, of the Kingdom people from the worldly is not only necessary, but constantly taking place.

(Whether there will be an actual Rapture as believed by Hal Lindsay, my family, friends, and millions of others, I do not know. In keeping with what Jesus told us in Acts 1:7-8, it is not my problem. I trust Jesus now and do my best to obey Him. As best I can figure, if the Rapture does take place, I'm in a position to go up, same as Hal. Meanwhile, I'm still here.)

The Lord is, even at this moment, coming down and pouring into the world through us. When we as individuals accept this, both worldly powers and satanic principalities are shaken. We cannot expect the various antichrists and the Prince of the Power of the Air and his hierarchy to accept the casting down of their dominions without a fight. We should be prepared.

So if you have been raised with Messiah, seek what is above, where the Messiah is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God — Colossians 3:1-3

Trouble ahead, trouble behind.
Don't you know that notion just crossed my mind