The Law of Sowing
You may run as fast as you can, but you will never outrun this reality: “What a man sows this he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7). It’s an inviolable spiritual law. It makes no exceptions, shows no partiality, and can not be evaded. “What a man sows this he will also reap.”
The world, your flesh, and the devil don’t want you to believe it. They want to convince you that you can beat the odds and to think that you are the exception; that somehow others have always had to reap the consequences of sown thoughts and actions, but not you. You alone can pander to the desires of the flesh and still reap a harvest of righteousness, joy, and peace. Don’t believe it. “God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7).
There are no exceptions.
If you indulge the principle of sin within you and sow seeds of wickedness, you will reap the corrupt fruit. The crop may not come up immediately, but in due time, you will reap the wicked seed you’ve sown. The Law of Sowing gets us all.
Consider two points of application:
First, in view of the Law of Sowing we must resolve, by God’s grace, to stop sowing to the flesh and start sowing to the Spirit!
For every action taken, we need to ask if we’re willing and able to reap the harvest for that investment. Remember, when you sow a seed it doesn’t seem like much at planting time. But it grows. You easily hold the acorn in your hand today but you’ll never be able to hold what it will become in time. Sin is also like that.
The seed of adultery may look unthreatening today—a “little” discontentment with my spouse, a “little” ingratitude, a “little” frustration. But that “little” seed will not stay small for long. Unless uprooted, it will grow. And as it grows you’ll be forced to experience micro-harvests of misery. But ultimately, the harvest you’ll glean is the corrupt fruit of adultery. That’s the Law of Sowing. What you sow you will reap. And what you sow always grows bigger than you expected.
Again, we need to ask ourselves: “Do I want to harvest what this wicked action will become?” Better to stop sowing to the flesh today and start sowing seeds of righteousness in hopes of a godly harvest tomorrow.
Second, if you’re in the midst of reaping a harvest of sin right now, don’t quit moving forward. We always live in the midst of past-seed-sown. You cannot escape the consequences of your past investments. However, if you give yourself to pressing on and sowing righteous seed today—even as you stand in the midst of a corrupt harvest—in due time you will reap righteousness, if you faint not. Your situation is like this:
You now stand in the midst of relational thorns (red lines). It’s the harvest of days/weeks/years gone by. You must experience the harvest of that seed. It hurts. You hate it. But you can’t escape it. In fact, your humble acceptance (and hatred!) of what you’ve sown is part of true repentance (2 Corinthians 7:11).
But, if you continue to move forward, sowing righteous seed as you go, in time, things will begin to look green. Don’t lose heart. The Law of Sowing is inviolable, but praise God it is true both ways. And praise God He gives grace to bear the fruit of past seed sown and eyes to look ahead at the prospect of a future harvest of righteousness as we sow seed to the Spirit today.
7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
8 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.
9 Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.
Galatians 6:7–9