Planting the right seeds

 Planting the Right Seeds

Don’t be misled — you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.

GALATIANS 6.7-9

Those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.

JAMES 3.18

When you plant flower seeds in your garden, do you expect to grow a pumpkin patch? Or when you plant a field of corn, do you expect to harvest green beans? Of course not! You know that what you harvest depends on the seeds you’ve planted.

It works the same way in our lives. We harvest what we plant. Sometimes we’re surprised by the conflict and pain that our lives produce. But it is often because we’ve planted seeds of sinful attitudes and actions, and we are simply experiencing the natural outgrowth of what we’ve sown in our lives. It works the other way too. When we are more patient with others, when we respond to challenges with faith instead of fear, when we love people who are not very lovable, it is an outgrowth of seeds planted by the Spirit of God in our lives.

This is why we have to be careful about what kind of seeds we’re planting in our hearts. If we want our lives to produce a crop of attitudes and relationships and accomplishments that are pleasing to God, we have to ask him to help us plant the right seeds.