I HAD BEEN PRAYING FOR WEEKS THAT SOMETHING WOULD PULL ME OUT OF MY WRITER’S BLOCK. THAT SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED. I APOLOGIZE THAT THIS POST IS TERSE AND STRONG, AND MAY OFFEND EVERYONE I KNOW. ASK YOURSELF THIS, THOUGH. WHY DID IT OFFEND YOU?
WARNING: This blog may contain language that some people will find objectionable and offensive.
Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity and sow wickedness, reap the same.
He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity: and the rod of his anger shall fail.
But this I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.
Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
DEFINITIONS
INIQUITY (n) – immorality, heinousness, evil, injustice, crime, wickedness, sin, vice. (The Antonym of iniquity is: GOODNESS (n) – Virtuous, decency, kindness, honesty, integrity, righteousness.)
From Biblical Research
trouble, wickedness, sorrow, idolatry
STUPID (adj) – foolish, unwise, senseless, ill-advised, imprudent, thoughtless, injudicious, rash, irresponsible, reckless, heedless, fatuous, silly, inane, nonsensical, ludicrous, futile, ridiculous, senseless, absurd, asinine, daft…etc. (The Antonym of Stupid is: WISE (adj) – astute, intelligent, prudent, sensible, judicious, shrewd, learned, informed, artful, cunning, crafty.)
IMMUTABLE (adj) – Unchangeable, absolute, unassailable, Incontrovertible, Final, Unalterable, Permanent, Fixed, Binding, Cannot be forfeited. GOD
THE CIRCUMSTANCE
Someone I love dearly denounced God…Again. I wanted to shout, cry, do something…I don’t know…throttling her would not have represented the Love of Jesus. I have been sitting silently. Watching her. Wondering how she cannot see the trap she has sprung on herself.
For the past several years, life has been rough for her. I cannot give you any details, but believe me, her life has been a roller coaster ride of extremes. She has experienced outcomes she never dreamed were possible, and none of them have been good at all. For all practical purposes, her life has been a living hell.
She will tell anyone who will listen that God is mad at her, is punishing her, and she is done with Him, as He clearly does not care what has been going on in her world. That is her reasoning, such as it is.
Where her smile used to light up a room, her countenance is clearly darkened, and angry. Sadness and bitterness is etched on her face. She cries a lot, and keeps asking “Why, WHY?!?”
The sad things is, no one can tell her why unless they want to have their head torn off. She is very uncomfortable with the truth, no matter how gently and sweetly it is delivered. I know this because every time she has disowned me, it is because I answered her question, “Why?”
HERE’S WHY – And let this be a lesson we all take to heart.
I can answer this question because, for over 20 years, I walked in her very shoes. When a very painful experience happened in the early ’90’s, I blamed God for it. God had even warned me in advance that that pain was on its way, and if I stood faithful to Him, I would come out on the other side purified. The pain was intended to draw me near. Because I was far too religious I didn’t see things the way God did. The God I had fabricated in my mind was supposed to make things better according to what I think is best. He was supposed to wink at my rebellion, all my willful sin, and do things the way I thought they should be done. When things didn’t work out that way, I got mad at God…the real God, not the false idol I had created in my heart. I got mad because the real God did not bow down to the image of the god I had fabricated.
If you read the definitions above, you will see I highlighted the word “idolatry” in bold. That was under the definition of iniquity. Iniquitous acts are what separates us from God. Iniquity stems from the fact that in our self-centered world view, we try to bend God to our will. We create a god in our hearts that lives to serve our whims. That false god is supposed to wink at our willful acts of rebellion and disobedience, and make things right.
When that fails to happen, we blame the real God. When we make god in our image, we have created a flawed and false being; we have made an idol of our opinion of God and worshipped it. Our opinion of things become more important than God’s view of them. When God doesn’t make subservient obeisance to our idol, we get mad at Him. We blame God for our stupidity. We insist that God is judging us, when all that is happening is that we are reaping what we sow.
KARMA IS A BITCH ONLY IF YOU ARE TOO!
Hosea said it best when he said: “They have planted the wind and will harvest the whirlwind.” (Hosea 8:7a – NLT).
Jesus alluded to this principle when he said:
Matthew 13:18-23
Hear then the parable of the sower. “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. “The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away. “And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. “And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it; who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”
– See more at: http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Sowing-And-Reaping#sthash.hbciNPo4.dpuf
We sow what we have first planted in our heart. This is the distinction between someone who is religious, or an idolater, or a non-believer and one who is a genuine believer. What we allow God to sow in our heart are the immutable truths about Jesus Christ and His character. We are to be made into His likeness. What we sow to the world is the result of what we have allowed God to sow in our hearts, or what we have sown in place of what God wanted to give you. If we have ignored God, or fought God, or made an idol of our opinion of God, we cannot let the Holy Spirit break any fertile ground in us. What is sown by God either dies, is stolen, or is destroyed, unless we are tenderhearted toward the things of God. It is only the submitted heart that accepts the seed that the Holy Spirit wants to plant. All other hearts are not able to produce fruit that reveals Christ.
If what you are experiencing is unremitting pain due to the fact that the god you invented is not meeting your needs, perhaps you need to rethink your god. Or, to put it the way it was explained to me some time ago: “Stupid is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.”
If your life isn’t working out, stop blaming the real God, and start blaming the self-centered little god you invented. God does not exist to worship you, you exist to worship God.
There is a reason we are to stop sowing the seeds of sin. When we sow the fruit of bitterness in our hearts, the fruit produced is clamor, wrath, anger, malice and slander. We reveal the fruit of our hearts by the words we speak. We are snared on the vines of our bitterness, or the fruit of the Spirit. Everyone who reads your facebook account can tell what fruit has been planted in your heart.
You will always reap what you sow, or as Jesus said it best:
“Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full–pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.” Luke 6:48 NLT
When you sow the seeds of bitterness, you reap it back in heaps. It multiplies itself. People will always return to you what you give. The universe itself is wired this way. It is the immutability of life. This fact is so obvious that it is the central themes of many religions.
GOD’S IMMUTABLE CHARACTER
Gos is perfect in every way. If he had to change, he would cease to be perfect.
His character never changes.
God is always…
Love
Hope
Grace
Mercy
Forgiving
Our Supply
Our Redeemer
Our judge
Our Father
Our provider
Wise
Good
Generous
And His plans never change.
God set things up to run a certain way. It is not God that changed things, it was us. We decided we didn’t need God. We changed as a result of this decision. We brought sin into the world. To sin and expect God to wink at your sin is an act of ego driven stupidity.
If God decided to do that, He would immediately be a liar to His own character. He would cease to be God.
God is unchanging in all His promises. The promise that the wages of sin is death has not changed. The promise of everlasting life to those who believe in Jesus will never change. These facts were determined long before this universe was ever created.
God is forever Holy and righteous. His judgments are eternal as well as is His grace and love and mercy.
God knew that Mankind is ever changing and ever unrighteous. So He made a covenant with Jesus that Jesus will die of the sin of all mankind, and be raised from the dead. That whoever on earth believes and accepts this free gift, and confesses it, will have eternal life. This covenant cannot be broken because Man was not involved in it. It was a promise made between God and Jesus. If you have truly accepted Jesus as your lord and savior, then you are eternally secure in your salvation.
One earmark that sets aside all the Children of God from all the religious people is this, God’s children are ever in pursuit of God. They seek God at every turn. They acknowledge that God is right, and that we need to do things His way. They acknowledge that they are helpless.
TIRED OF THE BITTER FRUIT?
• Galatians 6:8 (KJV)
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
God is spirit. The Spirit of God is Holy, always, immutably so. If you want the fruit of goodness and holiness and peace, begin to think on the things of God. Persue Him with all your heart.
Start with the confession that you have built an idol you expected Him to bow down to.
Jesus said it best when He said:
“Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full–pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.” Luke 6:48 NLT
What then shall we give? First, give your life to the Christ who exchanged all your sin for all His glory on the cross. Understand that, on the cross, everything evil, every sin, every heart ache, every act of selfishness, every wayward deed and thought, every act of stupidity, was poured into Him while the wrath of God was poured out on Him.
When you have done this business with God, allow the Spirit of God to dwell in you. The Holy Spirit will lead you to understand the ways of God and His will for you, starting with the fact that it is His will that no one should die. But He is also a God of eternal righteousness, and His judgment stands for eternity. You are already dead if you have not accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior.
Evidence that this is not just some religious thing will present itself in the incredible change the Spirit of God has made in your heart. You will have no desire other than the desire to know God in all His entirety. You know this is true because you have personally seen the difference the Spirit of God has made in my own horrible life. I was a monster, and now I am His, and one who loves life, and one who loves humanity, one who gives, and one who blesses others. I could never have done thins myself. You know personally that I was a Pharisee, knowing the scriptures thoroughly, but living as if I were a child of Satan.
Learn the lesson my life can teach you, dear child. You want your life to change, but you do not want to know God the way he really is. You have made an idol of your own imaginations, and worshipped it as God. When your religious imagination did not fulfill all your whims, you blamed the real and eternal living God. That was stupid.
You can produce fruit of the Spirit only when Jesus has really and genuinely become your savior and Lord. You will pursue him, not out of religious obligation, but because God has completely changed you.
Dear heart, stop living the life you are living and getting mad at God because you are reaping what you sow. God will not wink at your sin, if He did, He would cease to be God.
Your life will produce good fruit if you will just stop what you are doing and believe.
I love you. I pray for you. But even God will not change the heart of one who refuses to listen. God cannot honor your rebellion.
Let’s be about it.
I Love You
David G. Perkins
sammy.snardfarkle@gmail.com
David G. Perkins 