Reasonable Expectation!

When someone wants to plant a garden they don't generally just walk outside and throw seed out on the ground. They begin by choosing a spot, breaking up the ground, working up the soil, nurturing with fertilizer, sowing the seeds, and then watering and keeping out the weeds through the weeks ahead. By doing so there can be a reasonable expectation of reaping in accordance with what was sown.

I know it is not the season for planting. Our ground right now is frozen as hard as a rock. However, when we consider our lives, we ought to focus on what is being cultivated and produced through all the seasons of life. Just as the fruitful garden does not happen by itself, neither does the fruitful life that remains wild and un-nurtured.

Reading through Hosea yesterday I was once again struck by the following.
"(11) Ephraim was a trained calf that loved to thresh, and I spared her fair neck; but I will put Ephraim to the yoke; Judah must plow; Jacob must harrow for himself. (12) SOW FOR YOURSELVES RIGHTEOUSNESS; REAP STEADFAST LOVE; BREAK UP YOUR FALLOW GROUND, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you." ( Hosea 10:11-12 ESV)

This is what God wanted for His people. However, they had "plowed iniquity" and therefore had "reaped injustice", having trusted in their own way and in their own resources. ( Hosea 10:13) For sowing such, was that not a reasonable expectation? Why should something different be expected than that which was sown?

The truth of the harvest whether we are talking about the garden or the life is that one reaps what they sow. ( Galatians 6:7) Therefore, we should take the time to cultivate a right heart before God so that the SEEDS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS may be planted, nurtured, fertilized, watered, and grown to fruitfulness in our life. If the heart has become hardened, let us allow God's Will to break through so that SEEDS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS may germinate from within us. As always, "it is time to seek the Lord." May GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS rain down upon us, so that being nourished by it, HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS shall be produced.

Have a great day CULTIVATING THE RIGHT CROP!
Carl

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