We Sow - God Decides What We Reap - Psalms 125-127

Psalms 126:6 (ESV)

He who goes out weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

bringing his sheaves with him.

This section of the psalms are songs that were song when the people of Israel would go to the Temple for worship during one of the feast times.   They were songs of rejoicing and praise and worship.   In the above line we find one of the precious of all certainties of God’s word.  It states that those who take God’s word (the seed) and go in the  compassion of the Spirit to sow the seed, will most assuredly come back with blessings.   This called the law of the harvest.   Paul used it to warn the Galatians of the negative side of the law of the harvest by stating it this way:

Galatians 6:7 (ESV)

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.

He went on to add the positive side of it:

Galatians 6:8 (ESV)

For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

When we sow in the Spirit we will reap from the Spirit eternal life.   That is the above song of the ascents.  God wants us to know as we seek to worship Him in the Spirit we will return from that worship with abundant blessings.  That blessing may not be characterized in the way we always think, however.   God gives us eternal blessings for what we reap in the Spirit.  We don’t see them like we might think, or want, or expect.   But that does not diminish the truth of the above verse.  We are to reap with passion the seed God gives us.  It is His choice how He decides what type “sheaves” look like that we reap from that sowing.   

Skip the Arrogant Part and Stay in Humility - 2 Chronicles 29-32

2 Chronicles 32:24-25 (ESV)

In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death, and he prayed to the LORD, and he answered him and gave him a sign. But Hezekiah did not make return according to the benefit done to him, for his heart was proud. Therefore wrath came upon him and Judah and Jerusalem.

Well, there is a life legacy many people have.  They serve God and then their heart gets full of themselves and don’t serve God.  The God brings discipline in the form of some suffering and they humble themselves and return to God.   God then removes His wrath.   It seems it would be wise to drop the middle part between when we start serving God and finish serving God.   But we all seem to have that middle part where we, in our pride, think more of ourselves than we should.   God wants us to be in a state of humility.    God will exalt us if we do.  

Here is a great prayer list to ask for God’s humility throughout life:

MONDAY 

O Lord, open my lips,

That my mouth may declare Your praise.

For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it;

You are not pleased with burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. (Psalm 51:15-17 NASB)

TUESDAY 

For thus says the high and exalted One

Who lives forever, whose name is Holy,

"I dwell on a high and holy place,

And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit

In order to revive the spirit of the lowly

And to revive the heart of the contrite." (Isaiah 57:15 NASB)

WEDNESDAY- LIKE DAVID:

1 Samuel 24:13-14

As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness.’ But my hand shall not be against you. After whom has the king of Israel come out? After whom do you pursue? After a dead dog! After a flea!

THURSDAY 

Luke 14:11 (ESV Strong's)

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

FRIDAY - AS SAID OF JOB

Job 25:6 (ESV)

6 how much less man, who is a maggot,

and the son of man, who is a worm!”

Job 33:6 (ESV) (Elihu)

Behold, I am toward God as you are;

I too was pinched off from a piece of clay.

SATURDAY 

1 Chronicles 17:16-17 (ESV Strong's)

David's Prayer

Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, “WHO AM I, O LORD GOD, AND WHAT IS MY HOUSE, THAT YOU HAVE BROUGHT ME THUS FAR? And this was a small thing in your eyes, O God. You have also spoken of your servant's house for a great while to come, and have shown me future generations, O Lord God!

SUNDAY

1 Corinthians 15:10 (ESV Strong's)

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Testing Teaches Humility - Deuteronomy 7-9

Deuteronomy 8:1-2 (ESV)

“The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers. And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

God wanted the nation of Israel to possess the Promise Land.   However, their rebellion made it impossible.  God had the first generation, those He redeemed from Egypt, die in the wilderness.   He rose up another generation that Moses is speaking to via the book of Deuteronomy.    It is to this generation the above words were written.  At this point almost all the people from the first generation are gone.   So when Moses writes that:

... your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, ...

He was telling this new generation that God was humbling them.  Since God destroyed everyone 21-years and older, some of this new generation were 60 years old.  Some 40.   Some younger.   They were being tested.   Those test God gave them were for the purpose of humbling them.  God often brings us into strange and difficult moments to test us to bring humility into our lives.   We are not to resist the test God gives.  We are to realize that these test, these trials, are sent for a bigger purpose:

James 1:2-4 (ESV)

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

In the test find humility. 

Our Speech Should Match Our Service - James 1-2

James 1:26-27 (ESV)

If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Spirituality is not demonstrated by what we say but rather that we don’t say and by how we serve.  Those who talk much and serve little are not showing faith to God or favor to man.   God wants us to use our tongues in a way that reflects and compliments our actions.    The phrase, “actions speak louder than words,” may have been founded on what James says above.   

James is writing to a group of young believers who have been dispersed throughout the region of Asia.   He wants them to stand tall in the slouching world around them.   The above two verses speak of two parts of their conduct James wants to make sure demonstrate the Savior they represent:

1. Control of the tongue - what you say. 

2. Conduct that is pure - what you do. 

If we want to sojourn in this world in a way that attracts the world to Jesus, we can’t be duplicitous.  We must match our conduct with our words.     

The Gospel Changes Lives - But, At Times, Not Our Minds - Acts 9-10

Acts 9:21-22 (ESV)

And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.

Do we allow others to change as a result of the Spirit of God working in their lives?  It is easy to believe in the power of the gospel while at the same time doubt when someone is changed by it.  That is what we have in the above passage.  Paul is miraculously saved by the gospel and then starts acting like one of the Apostles (and, indeed, will soon be called as on of them).   Yet, as he acts out his faith those around are skeptical that God can change a man like Paul.   We need to make sure we do not doubt the power of the gospel to change the lives even of the most wicked men.   It is easy for us to believe the gospel but not allow others to be changed by it.    They wanted to keep Paul in a box.  Look what will shortly be written by Luker, the writer of Acts:

Acts 9:26-27 (ESV)

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.

Oh how easy it is to believe that Jesus Christ changes lives and then not let a life be changed right in front of us.  

God Uses Even the Wicked For His Glory - Habakkuk

Habakkuk 1:12-13 (ESV)

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

Are you not from everlasting,

O LORD my God, my Holy One?

We shall not die.

O LORD, you have ordained them as a judgment,

and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.

You who are of purer eyes than to see evil

and cannot look at wrong,

why do you idly look at traitors

and remain silent when the wicked swallows up

the man more righteous than he?

Habakkuk is a prophet with a few complaints about how God is conducting His business.   In the previous verses we read that God’s answer to the wickedness in Habakkuk’s nation was to send the Chaldeans nation to punish them.   The Chaldeans are not nice people.  In fact in Job 1, they are the people Satan used to destroy Job.   They are very wicked.   This is where Habakkuk has a problem.   He simply asks in this complaint toward God, “How can you use a people more wicked than his own nation to punish his nation.   This seems like a logical argument.   

What Habakkuk doesn’t realize is that God rose up the Chaldeans and allowed their wickedness for this very purpose.   God chose the nation of Israel for Himself.  They were turning their back on their Father, Yahweh.   God requires more from His people than He does from those who come to power only because they are wicked.  God does use wickedness in this world to be a tool to correct His people.  God does not create the wicked.   They are just a people absent God’s grace.   But God will move these people into His service to correct and discipline His children.  Note what the prophet Isaiah says about God and how He rises up wicked men to do His work:

Isaiah 45:5-7 (ESV)

I am the LORD, and there is no other,

besides me there is no God;

I equip you, though you do not know me,

that people may know, from the rising of the sun

and from the west, that there is none besides me;

I am the LORD, and there is no other.

I form light and create darkness;

I make well-being and create calamity;

I am the LORD, who does all these things.

God will and does use even the wicked in this world for His ultimate glory.   

I Said In My Heart - Ecclesiastes 1-2

Ecclesiastes 1:16 (ESV)

I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.”

Six times in the book of Ecclesiastes Solomon makes the statement, “I said in my heart.”   Above is one and here are the other five:

Ecclesiastes 2:1 (ESV)

The Vanity of Self-Indulgence

I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.

Ecclesiastes 2:15 (ESV)

Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity.

Ecclesiastes 3:17 (ESV)

I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.

Ecclesiastes 3:18 (ESV)

I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts.

The heart in Hebrew language is not referring to the emotional seat of life, as in Western philosophy and psychology.  It is also including the act of reasoning.  What Solomon is saying it I am pearling into life and trying to reason out what it all means.   The entire book of Ecclesiastes is centered around this thought.   One the reasons why Satan may be having this world (of which he is the prince) move so fast is so that it prevents us from pondering, meditating, or wondering and musing about life.   Solomon is the richest and most powerful man on the planet at this time.   He is taking time to say in his heart, “What is all this about?”  It would do well for us all to take a moment and think about that thought.   The world moves so fast and so violet we have little time to pause to contemplate about life.   That is not what God wants us to do.  He wants us to pause and think and about who He is and how we fit into His plan for His kingdom.  But we get so caught up in our own that we don’t take a moment to say, “I said in my heart ...!”