The More You Sow...

“Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed; as it is written,

‘He scattered abroad, he gave to the poor,
His righteousness endures forever.’

Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness; you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God.”
2 Corinthians 9:6-11

Two farmers planted in the spring. One sowed twenty acres of wheat - the other seventy-five acres. When harvest came, guess whose barn was full?

The law of sowing and reaping is God’s fundamental, universal law. And it works just as systematically and resolutely in the spiritual realm as it does in the earthly. If we need love, we must sow loving words and acts in the lives of others. If we are low on friendship, we must become a friend to someone else. That is why giving is God’s only plan for abundant living. “Now this I say, he who sows (gives) sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows (gives) bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Cor. 9:6).

We cannot cling to our money, our time, or our talents - and expect them to increase. They must be put into circulation. Sowing involves death. When we give to others, it means we have to die to something that we want or need. Generous giving is impossible apart from daily dying to self. But as we trust the Lord of the harvest in distributing our goods and dying to self, we can be assured of an abundant return in God’s time. It is God’s way of blessing.

“There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more...” Proverbs 11:24