Enlarge Your Harvest (7 Laws Of Sowing And Reaping)

Most of the seed farmers plant takes 4-6 months to get a harvest. They don’t plant a seed, and then after 4 days they’re saying, Where is that harvest, I’m tired of waiting, its been 4 whole days. Impatient farmers don’t last long. Now, lets apply this to us. If you plant seed by starting to tithe, don’t get impatient if you don’t see the harvest in 4 days. Maybe you won’t see it this week or this month, but it just means the seed is still growing, Farmers don’t get impatient after 4-6 days or weeks, when they know a harvest takes 4-6 months. And you didn’t get into your financial mess in a month, so God’s not gonna get you out in a month, just because you’ve finally started sowing seed, the harvest takes a while to come in. So that means, after you start to sow seed, Don’t give up, Stay consistent with your sowing. Stay obedient. Keep your faith in place. Just trust God, and his promise, because the increase will come at the proper time, the harvest will come. What God promises, he will deliver. James 5:7-8 TNIV See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm. The farmer trusts that the harvest will come, so he waits patiently, and if we obey God and sow some seed, we can absolutely trust God, that he will bring a harvest if we wait. The fourth law: You always reap in proportion to what you sow. In proportion means, You sow a little seed, get a little harvest. You sow a lot of seed, get a big harvest. 2 Corinthians 9:6 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. When it comes planting time, does the farmer sit there and think, You know, things are a little tight this year, my expenses have been higher than I thought, and I had that car repair I hadn’t planned on, and I don’t have much saved yet for my vacation in florida next winter, so you know, I think I’m gonna plant less seed this spring, I was going to plant 500 acres, I think I’ll only plant 100 acres this spring, because things are just too tight, No, a farmer who did that would be foolish, Because if its tight now, he ain’t seen nothing yet… Next fall when he gets a puny harvest from only 100 acres, now he’s gonna be in real trouble financially. It works the same with our giving to God. If you’re feeling tight, that’s not the time to stop sowing seed, if you stop sowing now, then next season there won’t be any harvest at all. Luke 6:38 For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” You reap in proportion to what you sow. The fifth law of sowing and reaping, We always reap more than we sow 2 Corinthians 9:10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed…

Every farmer knows you gotta sow, in order to reap but he also knows that he will reap far more than he sows. If you plant 2 bushels of wheat, are you going to get back 2 bushels of wheat? No. If you did, you’d go out of business after one season. Farmers know if they plant 2 bushels of wheat, they can expect an average of about 67 bushels back. If you plant 3 bushels of oats, you’ll harvest, on average, 79 bushels of oats back. If you plant 7 1/2 pounds of corn, you will reap 120 bushels of corn back. I still remember the first time Kathy and I planted a garden at our house, We’re at the garden store, looking at tomato plants, and I asked Kathy, how many do you think we should get? She said, I don’t know. we both really like home-grown tomatoes, We looked at the tomato plants, and they’re little wimpy looking things, so we decided, we better get at least about 20 plants, or we’re not gonna have many tomatoes at all. We had no idea what we were getting into. We had more tomatoes than we could imagine. We canned tomatoes. froze tomatoes. gave tomatoes away. made salsa. threw tomatoes at the neighbors dog, And we still ended up with more than we could handle. Because you always reap a lot more than you sow. That’s one of the laws of sowing and reaping, that every farmer understands. And it works exactly the same with what we give to God. In fact, almost every time in the bible, that God tells us to give the first part of our income back to Him and His work, almost every time, he adds a promise, and says, if you do that, “I’ll reward you. I’ll bring an increase, I’ll make it worth your while, I’ll multiply it back to you. Lets continue reading in 2 Cor… Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed… and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. God rewards us when we give. And notice God’s promise here: You’ll be made rich in every way, for what purpose? So you can spend it all on a bigger house and nicer cars and better vacations? so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. There’s a reason God rewards our giving, and its not so that we can get more stuff, or be more selfish. God’s purpose in rewarding us, is so we can receive God’s blessings, and then use them to be a blessing, to the world around us, so they’ll give thanks to God for you, that’s why God gives you back more than you sow. Let me give you some other examples of this: You’ve heard these verses, but they all relate to how you reap more than you sow. Proverbs 3:9-10 Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine. Malachi 3:10-12 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. Jesus says Luke 6:38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. Over and over again in the Bible, we see this law stated, the law of sowing and reaping, that you always reap more than you sow. Again, it’s the principle: What you keep is all you have, but what you give God multiplies. The 6th Law of Sowing and Reaping You may sow secretly, but the harvest is viewed by all. Matthew 6:3-4 Amp But when you give to charity, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your deeds of charity may be in secret; and your Father Who sees in secret will reward you openly. If you drive through the countryside in August, you can look out and see huge fields filled with corn 6 feet high, or soybeans, or other crops, and you look at that and think, Whohh, that’s gonna be a huge harvest. But you know I don’t know if I’ve ever driven around and seen the farmers planting the seed. Even if I saw them in a tractor, I might not know that they were planting seed. Unless you happened to drive by on just the right day, and you knew that’s what you were doing, you’d totally miss that part. its like its done in secret. Nobody sees the farmer plant the seed, but everybody notices the huge harvest. That is another law of life. When we look at all the people around us, rarely do we see all the work, sweat and tears that a person has labored and sacrificed, in order to plant seed. We don’t see that part, But we all see the harvest in their lives. Sometimes we look around, and we’re asking, how come that person is getting blessed so much, not only financial blessings, but their life is full of peace, and joy, and fruitfulness? Look at the way God is blessing them, God, why aren’t you blessing me like that? Its not fair, don’t you love me God, I’ve been a Christian just as long as them, What’s the deal, God? Why are they getting blessed so much. Well, let me say this, there’s never easy answers to those questions, and someone who looks good on the outside, isn’t always as blessed when you look deeper, But if they’re truly being blessed by God, then at least part of the reason is, that they’ve been planting seeds. But we don’t usually see that part. We see the way they’re getting blessed today, but we don’t see the years of faithful cultivating and sowing and cultivating and sowing some more, We don’t see those years of sowing seed, that brought them to the place where they are today. Everybody can see the harvest they’re now reaping, that’s visible and apparent to all, but nobody sees the sacrifice, of sowing seeds week after week, month after month, when nobody else is watching. Finally, the 7th law of the Harvest: You are responsible to sow; God is responsible for the harvest. Mark 4:26-29 TNIV "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come." The point is, the farmer doesn’t make that seed grow, he doesn’t even know how it grows. Notice the words “all by itself, the soil produces the grain.” The farmer doesn’t make the seed work, he doesn’t have to know how the seed works, he just knows, that if he sticks it in the ground, adds water, and keeps the weeds away, then he’s gonna end up with a big crop, Same thing with our finances. We sow the seed, but then God is responsible for multiplying it. And we don’t even know how he could do it. It looks impossible to us, We don’t understand how we could give money away, and then end up with a bigger harvest, and more back, That doesn’t make any sense to us. But God runs the whole universe, so he has a thousand ways we’ve never even thought of, to bring in the harvest. He controls everything, so He can bless me by increasing my income or getting me a raise, or a bonus. He can bless me by decreasing my expenses, or by giving me an inheritance, or unexpected gift. He can bless me by protecting my possessions so my car doesn’t break down, the pipes don’t freeze, and the washing machine keeps on going, There's a thousand ways God can bless my finances. Deut 15:10 NIV Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. Notice the words, all, and everything. He blesses it all, if we do what? give generously. So those are the 7 laws of sowing and reaping. If you sow, you will have a harvest; if you don’t, you won’t. You reap the same kind of seed you sow. You reap later than you sow. You always reap in proportion to what you sow. You reap more than you sow. You may sow secretly, but the harvest is viewed by many. You are responsible to sow; God is responsible for the harvest. Now a couple quick things. Please understand that we are not promoting in this church a give more to get more kind of mentality. As I said earlier, There is an illness in Christianity