Welcome to Word of Life Study Series- Rules of Reaping. Here is a provocative question, “can Christians sleep through their harvest?” We have to sow before we can reap and our lack of giving often finds its roots in a lack of faith. If we were to give as the Lord has asked us to, there would be no problem in reaping a harvest today. However, for most of us, when prompted by the Lord to give, we have doubts that He is able to get it back to us in time in order to meet our other obligations that are coming up. “Well Lord, if I give that $500 to so-in-so, that I have set aside for this bill that is due in 15 days, can You really get it back to me in time?”
1. Why Some People Don’t Have Harvests
There are many in charismatic circles today who think that all there is to prosperity is making confessions and turning in prayer requests and calling hotlines. But that is not enough, we have to sow, give and plant financial seed to reap a financial harvest. We will see in the teachings of Jesus and the apostle Paul, they both compared natural sowing and reaping with spiritual sowing and reaping. It’s a mistake for us to separate spiritual things from natural things- thinking that they have nothing in common. In reality, God patterned the natural world after the spiritual realm by design, so we would make the connection.
2. They Got Tired, Waiting for the Harvest
Don’t ever put a time limit on when the harvest is ready. Stay in a state of eager expectation and don’t quit until it comes to pass in your life. What if it took 5 years for something to come to pass? Abraham had to wait 25 years for Isaac to be born- Genesis 12:4; 21:5. You will reap a harvest if you do not quit; it’s through faith and patience that we receive the manifestation of the promises of God. If there are things you believed for and you gave up, go back and pick it back up and keep believing, keep expecting.
3. Many Think Reaping is Automatic
The parable of the growing seed is talking about the spiritual counterpart to the natural process of seed growing in the soil. So in this parable, who sowed the seed? The man did. Who caused the seed to grow and develop? The soil or God does. Who reaped the harvest, God or man? The man did. Many are of the opinion that they have nothing to do with the reaping aspect of the harvest, that it just automatically happens whether they know the harvest has come or not. Reaping the harvest is no more automatic than sowing the seed is.
4. How to Reap
So the next obvious question is this, “having sown material seed, how do we reap a material harvest?” We can be walking by faith in one area of our life, and not walking by faith in another. We can be living in divine health, but be struggling financially. Faith in one area of the promises of God does not automatically make all the promises of God manifest in our lives. We know when it comes to receiving healing that we simply have to claim it by faith based on the redemptive work of Jesus Christ and receive. We need to stop praying for money and about money the way we have been up until now. The money we need is in this world, God does not have it in heaven. If we are a giver in line with the Scriptures, we are sowing material seed, then according to the Bible the provision is already there and available. Therefore, what we need to do in order to reap our financial harvest is to claim what we need out of this world system. Be specific and name the dollar amount that is needed to meet those needs. Believe that you receive it and claim it in Jesus’ Name.