Sowing and Reaping is a Process
By Stan Moser
Joshua and the Israelites were facing the challenge of a lifetime. After more than forty years of wilderness wandering, they still were living just across a flooded river from their Promise Land. As Joshua sought the Lord, it became clear—it was time to cross the river.
Joshua knew the difficulty of this task, but God wasn’t about to send him into the Process of Possessing the Land without some very clear guidelines we can see in the verse above that would guarantee their success:
Give your full attention to declaring and sharing God’s Word
Meditate on that Word continually
Do all that God’s Word says
Make wise decisions, and
Receive the promised result or reward
As we know, the Israelites learned to follow these guidelines (or principles), and over the next few years they did receive all that God had promised (Joshua 23:14). The Process worked because they followed the Principles that God had provided.
Seven Principles of Sowing and Reaping
There is also a biblical Sowing and Reaping Process guided by seven very clear Principles. Applying these Principles has radically changed my life over the last two decades. They can do the same for you.
Principal # 1: Surrendering to God Is Required
My pursuit of biblical truth about sowing and reaping began about twenty years ago. At that point, I had lived what most people would call a successful life. I was a committed believer with a thirty-year career in a rapidly growing Christian music industry that allowed me to live well while building a company to sell. The sale of our company left me with more than $1,000,000 in the bank and a five-year employment contract.
I hope you noticed the word committed in the last paragraph. I most definitely was a committed Christian, but I was about to learn that that wasn’t enough. I would soon face circumstances that demanded complete surrender to Jesus Christ, not just a commitment. Possibly you are in the same place today. Shortly after the cash from selling the company was in the bank, I began to make a series of bad financial choices. Oh, I did make significant donations to my local church and other ministries. However, at that point, I had very little understanding of the Sowing and Reaping Process. I was simply being faithful to what I understood from my church heritage.
Within five years, I found myself more than $1,000,000 in debt and divorced. I had arrogantly left my executive position at the company I helped build and sell, and the poor investments I had made hadn’t produced a job for me as expected. In other words, I was 51 years old with no job and a large debt load, including a lot of alimony that had to be paid. As you may know from your own experience, when you hit bottom in life you get to choose. You can run to God or run away from Him. Fortunately, I spent the last part of that five-year period of destruction running in the right direction—right into the arms of my loving Father.
It took a lot of re-programming, but I began to learn to not look at my circumstances, but to the promises of God clearly contained in my Bible. I began to listen to that “still small voice” of the Spirit deep inside as I made what seemed like minor decisions. One of those decisions led me to an event in downtown Nashville during Gospel Music Week Here I found myself face-to-face with God’s answer for my broken heart. Her name was Sue, and seven months later we were married. We often recall just how bad that decision on her part looked from the outside, but she had faith—sometimes when I didn’t.
About two months after we married, we had no idea how to pay the next month’s bills, and Sue encouraged me to join her on a three-day fast. The church I grew up in didn’t teach on fasting, so that idea was foreign to me. However, I really couldn’t find a good reason not to join her, so I agreed. About twelve hours into the fast, as I sat next to Sue basically whining about my condition in life, I uttered these words to her, “You know, it’s not like I’m not willing to work. God knows I’m willing to work.” Then it happened. I heard that “still small voice” deep inside my spirit once again, “Yes, I know you are willing to work, but are you willing to let Me work?”
Suddenly I was face-to-face with a painful reality. My whole adult life had been spent setting my own course and asking God to bless my efforts. As I said, the church had been a part of my life for many years, and I knew a lot of Bible verses, but that wasn’t enough. On that cold dark January night, I made a permanent decision to “receive with meekness the implanted Word” and do whatever God required of me.
Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
James 1:21-22
For the very first time, I was ready to follow His lead completely—in every part of my life—and trust Him with the results. The First Principle of Sowing and Reaping—Surrendering to God Is Required was about to change my life forever.
Principle #2: We All Have Seed to Sow
After my encounter with God during the fast, I began to sow the seed that I did have—my time. For instance, when an opportunity to have lunch with a friend who needed advice came up, I was ready to go. When opportunities to consult a business or help a ministry came my way, I was all in. Much to my amazement, one of those lunches turned into a three-year paid consulting job. Shortly after that lunch meeting as I was on my way to serve on a committee for a local ministry, I ran into an old acquaintance who wanted to talk. I took the time to listen, and a few months later, that conversation turned into two years of consulting work. A new trend was developing. In fact, I could tell you ten different stories like these. For possibly the first time in my life, I was “letting God work” rather than asking Him to bless my plans (Psalms 37:3-4). In hindsight, I realize that investing what I had—my time—demonstrated the Second Principle of Sowing and Reaping—We All Have Seed to Sow. In fact, no matter how difficult our circumstances may be, we each have three kinds of seed to sow:
Our time (e.g., service, companionship, friendship, counsel)
Our resources (e.g., money, goods, services, talents), and
Our reputations (e.g., identity, credibility, influence).
Principle #3: The Quality of the Soil Determines the Amount of the Harvest
I’m sure you are familiar with what sowing and reaping looks like in the natural realm. Most of us have a basic understanding of how a farmer produces crops that feed us. That farmer depends on God’s original commitment to sowing and reaping for his survival (Genesis 8:22), and so do we. Of course, that farmer also understands the Third Principle of Sowing and Reaping—The Quality of the Soil Determines the Amount of the Harvest. A farmer is literally an investor. He starts with good seed and faith—a confident expectation—that placing that seed in the right environment will provide the opportunity for it to produce a crop. Then he is faithful to place that seed in the ground trusting that his efforts will provide food and more seed for planting in the next season.
Jesus provided a good description of this Third Principle in Matthew 13.
Be Intentional about where you sow seed.
“And as he sowed some fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.” Matthew 13:4Make your giving decisions after taking time to dig beneath the surface of every opportunity before you sow.
“Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, they were scorched, and because they had no rot they withered away.” Matthew 13:5-6Check the motives and operating policies of those in charge of the opportunity.
“And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.” Matthew 13:7Expect a return on your investment
“But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” Matthew 13:8
Principle #4: Faith and Patience Are Essential
It’s interesting to me that as Jesus explained what I call the Third Principle about the quality of the soil, He chose to not put a specific timeframe on the results the farmer should expect from his efforts. As every farmer knows, once the seed is planted there are still a lot of natural variables that come into play before his crop is ready to be harvested. So, what does a good farmer do while waiting for the crop to appear? He is patient. That is not a “whatever, que sera, sera” type of patience. No, it is a “confident, ready to go, expecting results in spite of trying times” type of patience.
During the waiting time, he tends every shoot that emerges from the ground while employing wisdom from others and his own experience to produce the best harvest possible (James 1:2-8). We have a similar responsibility in our lives. As we walk through this life, God places “seed” in our hands. The type and amount of seed is always up to Him—but we all have seed to sow. The result or increase is always in God’s hands as well, but sowing that seed is up to us. Just like the farmer in this example, we must maintain our faith in the sowing and reaping process or others will go hungry.
So, what do you do while you are waiting for your seed to produce a harvest?
You let patience have its perfect work (James 1:2-4),
You keeping digging into God’s Word because “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17),
You bring life out of your faith by taking action (James 1:22-25), and
You never give up (Hebrews 10:37-39)
You are just one more faithful servant in a long line of “successful farmers.” As long as there is an earth, seedtime and harvest will never end (Genesis 8:22). You can count on the results.
Principle #5: We Receive in Proportion to What We Give
In his second letter to the believers at Corinth, Paul provided us with trustworthy insight into this Principle. Those believers had previously been moved deeply by Paul’s appeal for them to send aid to the suffering Christians from a previous visit. Much of what we now call 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 was intended to encourage them to be faithful—to deliver the resources they had promised. Paul exhorted them to be faithful to give and boldly delivered a profound promise that would motivate them to both faithful and faith-filled giving.
But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.
So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.
2 Corinthians 9:6-7
With this statement, Paul was simply underscoring what Jesus taught about sowing and reaping (Luke 6:38) and confirming the Fifth Principle of Sowing and Reaping—We Receive in Proportion to What We Give. With that principle clearly in place, the Corinthians stood face-to-face with decision time. Each of them had the right and responsibility to determine how much he or she was willing to sow. The same is true for you and me today. In those two verses, Paul also provided a way to measure every decision to give. Is our decision based on grudging obligation, or does it come from a heart that is joyfully surrendered to God’s will? Every gift matters to Him—and so does the heart of the giver.
Principle #6: All Seed Has Purpose
Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness, while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God.
2 Corinthians 9:10-11
In this verse, Paul introduces us to the Sixth Principle of Sowing and Reaping. God supplies all the seed, but some seed is for sowing, and some is for “bread” or consumption. Understanding this distinction is crucial for our alignment with God’s purpose and design for creating sowing and reaping from the very beginning. This verse provides the perfect picture of God’s plan for the seed He provides. God gives each of us seed (time, resources, reputation), but if we consume every seed that God places in our hands, there will be no future harvest.
A few years ago, a pastor friend of mine shared a perfect illustration of this Principle. A pastor from the United States was visiting a missionary and his family living in a drought-ridden area of Northern Africa. As they sat down to eat, there was very little bread to go around. The pastor noticed a bag of seeds in the corner of the room and asked why the missionary didn’t use that grain to make more bread to feed his family. The missionary replied, “Oh no, pastor, that seed is not for eating. If we eat that seed, we won’t have anything to plant to produce food for the next year.”
Principle #7: Consistency Is the Key to A Lifetime of Harvest
God provided an ironclad promise of the benefits of the Sowing and Reaping Process for us in Malachi 3:
Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this…if I will not open for you the windows of heaven pour out for and you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field…and all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land.
Malachi 3:10-12
In this passage, the prophet gave us a very simple way to grow our faith in the process of giving and receiving. The subject in this passage of Scripture is money, but the message here applies to other seeds we sow as well. I encountered the truth of this passage more than thirty years ago when I was a member of the First United Methodist Church in Waco, Texas. As part of the standard operating procedure at our church, the pastor and trustees approved an annual expense budget for the coming year and then asked members to pledge their giving for the coming year—hoping the amounts matched of course.
I decided to attend a special meeting where this process was explained, and pledge cards were distributed. That evening I was introduced to what was called the “PACT Program.” As I recall, that name was an acronym for “Proportional Approach to Christian Tithing.” The basis for the program was found in the passage from Malachi above. Our pastor, Dick Freeman, explained these verses and gave us a simple way to apply God’s challenge to “test Him” on the process of giving and receiving in our lives. He suggested that we take these steps:
Tally the actual amount of money we had given the church in the past calendar year
Calculate that amount as a percentage of our total income
Make a commitment (via a PACT card) to increase that amount in the coming year
Trust God to provide the increased resources to meet that pledge
After that meeting, when I stood face-to-face with Malachi 3:10-12, I couldn’t deny the simple truth it contained. So, I accepted the challenge (through the pastor, but really from God), and doubled my pledge for the coming year. I moved from giving 2% of my income to 4%, and that looked like a big risk to me. Of course, I was wrong. God is always faithful to fulfill His promises (2 Corinthians 1:20). He never changes His will or His ways (Hebrews 13:8). Year after year, as I watched God honor His Word in Malachi 3 and pour out more and more financial blessings in my own life, I increased the amount of my PACT pledge. In year three of that process, my income had increased so much that I was able to give 20% of my income to the church and other worthwhile ministry opportunities.
I had moved from discipline to desire—from faithful giving to faith-filled giving. What had been an obligation in the past became a personal mission. Looking back on those years, I now realize that I was learning the Seventh Principle of Sowing and Reaping—Consistency Is the Key To A Lifetime Of Harvest.
Conclusion
I hope that these Seven Principles of Sowing and Reaping will encourage you to activate or accelerate the Process of Sowing and Reaping in your life. As you have seen, I know from personal experience that following these principles will change your life and the lives of those around you. You may have been a faithful giver your entire life like so many of us. Being faithful (consistently loyal, unwavering in belief, conscientious) is good, but God wants us to understand that He deeply desires for our faithful giving to be a faith-filled response (with full expectation of a good result) to all He has already done in our lives. God’s Word never changes and never fails, but it’s always up to us to respond. There is no other way to get from where we are to where we want to be.