Getting The Benefits You Don't Deserve

Getting the Benefits You Don’t Deserve

Sep 18, 2014 2263

I grew up in a Christian church, and all along I was told that my job was to sow the seed of the gospel wherever I went, and that it was not my job to worry about what happened. That it was God who did the reaping and who gathers up the harvest at the end. You’ll hear that said over and over again in Christian circles. Have you heart it?

I guess that there is some support for this in the words of Paul I 1 Cor 3:6, where the apostle says,

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.

I guess that’s true from a practical, human – and somewhat flawed point of view.

But let’s look at it from the perspective of Jesus Christ. Read the “sowing” parables, like in Matthew 13. In all of Jesus’ teachings the sower is God himself. The reaping is done by his servants – by us. In other words, Jesus always presents it the other way around!

There is a very important reason what that’s the case. Jesus told us in John 4:38:

I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.

It is Christ who has done the hard work: he has done the sowing and the growing. And we are the reapers – we reap the benefits of his labour.

It makes sense doesn’t it? Jesus always does.

Don’t complain of all the hard work you have to do for God, because the hard work has already been done. In fact, there is no work, apart from the work of Christ, that you could do that would ever be acceptable to God.

If you are his servant, God will do the sowing and the growing of his kingdom in your life and everywhere around your life. The desert will bloom into flowers. You get to reap the benefits. And the joy is in the reaping!

Eliezer

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