Enjoying The Fruit Of Your Labors

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:9)

Although the bible has much to say about our need earnestly to plant seed and ensure that its soil remains suitable for further growth, some believers may lack an awareness of how to enjoy the abundance that God provides from those seed.

Few experiences in life can compare to the moments when we finally reap the benefits of our diligent efforts. Although we cannot always predict the exact date when our efforts are rewarded, we can be certain that a reward does await us once each necessary step has been completed.

One cannot overstate the importance of completing each necessary step, because a failure to do so can needlessly delay or detract from one's anticipated outcome. In biblical terms, reaping time comes in due season – a period that has been divinely ordained to no less precision than occurs with the ripening of a plant's fruit.

Our accountability for diligently producing beneficial outcomes never ceases. Not only do outcomes become manifest within our earthly lifetimes, but also our present efforts have consequences for our eternity.

Meaningful results come at a price. In the real world – as opposed to idealized circumstances - true victories emerge from adverse and even oppressive environments. For this reason, one is well advised to focus one's energies toward God's agendas in order to overcome forces that are poised to divert or subvert one's best efforts otherwise. Despite cultural suggestions to the contrary, rugged individualism is a recipe for abrupt failure.

God uses our harvest moments as a celebration with His people in which He abundantly rewards us for our enduring dedication to His purposes, while we as God's people recognize His faithfulness in the wealth that we produce.

The bible teaches that God provides hundredfold success for those who faithfully maintain their primary loyalty to His agenda. Jesus made this clear in his parable of the seed that fell on good ground.

Amazingly, a hundredfold blessing is a mere foreshadowing of an infinite abundance that God has reserved for His people in the world to come. In God's economy, abundance is not limited to one or two aspects of life, but instead encompasses all of our existence. The same God who promised through Moses an abundant state in which His people lack nothing, is the same God who has made even more abundant promises to the Messiah's elect.

God has declared holy our encounter with the fruits of our labor. In that context, God reminds us never to lapse into selfishness or arrogance as we reap these fruits. Instead, He teaches us to have thankful and obedient hearts once we reach the objectives that He has prepared for us. This is the same message that God spoke as He opened the promised land to His people (Deuteronomy 8:17-18):

“You may say to yourself, 'My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.' But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.”