"Our desires reap ruin, His
desires reap righteousness. Are you weeping or reaping?"
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Good morning RU Nation! Recently,
as is my custom after every holiday of Thanksgiving and Christmas self-indulgence,
I started the process of watching what I was eating. As a part
of my new focus, I found God wants me to starve my appetite for my favorite
food (for at least the foreseeable future.) In other words, God
has granted me no liberty to enjoy greasy, McDonald's french fries!
While this remains one of my favorite
foods and it is still one of my strongest daily desires to eat those
greasy pieces of potato, I must stay away from them. You see, I have
a desire, given to me by God, to regain my preferred weight. God's desire
is that I maintain a healthy, proper weight; but my desire is to eat
french fries.
I can do one of two things: I can
eat french fries and sow seed to my fleshly desires creating a larger
appetite and reaping ruin on my physical weight; or I can sow seeds
to His spiritual desire for my maintenance of a more healthy weight.
When I yield to my desire for french fries, I am going to reap ruin
on my health, but when I yield to His desires, it is simple and blessed
obedience and righteousness.
This brought me to think also of
my past. When I was saved, I was miraculously born again. God placed
within me desires for righteousness. Desire is the old English
word for the modern English word appetite. I had an appetite
for righteousness! But as I grew older, I now realize I hadn't been
feeding that appetite. Instead, I was yielding or feeding the
appetite of fleshly and youthful lusts. When I started get right with
God in 1993, I began slowly feeding myself that which He prescribed
as His desires.
Having yielded to my desires for
over ten years, I often found myself homeless or having an apartment
without furniture. My desires brought me ruin! But then, as I began
going to church and yielding to God's desires for my life, I started
to reap in righteousness. I was able to get a good paying job in a machine
shop. Shortly after that, I was promoted multiple times by God until
I was slotted in an executive position making a six-figure income! I
was reaping from my cooperation with His righteousness!
God talks about this in the Bible
in Galatians 6:7-8. "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." The Apostle Paul is
giving us several admonitions. First, he is telling us not to fall into
the self-deception of thinking that we can live an unrighteous lifestyle
and get away with it. There is His guarantee that if we live unrighteously,
we will suffer for it. Most of us have learned this lesson, but
there is a deeper lesson here I would like to share with you.
How do we mock God? We mock means
to imitate. We imitate Him when we try to do His work for
Him, albeit in our power. The word reap means to receive in
return. So, when we do God's work in our own power; that is in the
flesh, we will receive in return corruption or decay. We will suffer
a spiritual death when we try to do God's work in the flesh. Therefore,
Paul is warning us against both unrighteousness and self-righteousness.
We know when we do God's work in
the Spirit, it reaps life everlasting. No, I'm not talking about salvation
alone; I'm also talking about enjoying the benefits of our sanctification
- that's the abundant life!
So, my friends, if your reaping is
leaving you weeping, ask yourselves why? Develop a walk that is
deepening and you will start keeping what the Spirit is heaping!
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