Greetings;
I am presently in Portugal and just finished a great weekend with the churches of Figueira da Foz, and Caldas da Rainha. Thank you to all the hungry believers here. It is always a pleasure to minister Christ with my Portuguese family. I am looking forward to the next couple of weeks seeing all that God is going to do here.
I have been writing in regard to understanding the law, principle, or reality of harvest. In the creation of mankind God said to be fruitful, multiply, fill, subdue and have dominion over all the earth. When we hear God say despise not the day of small beginnings we often focus on small beginnings. When God says despise not the day of small beginnings He is thinking finish line, not beginnings. Small beginnings are not for the purpose of what is small. It is for the purpose of the completed end, the harvest of our lives.
Genesis 1:29-30 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so.”
There is a law, principle, or reality called sowing and reaping. We don’t have to believe it, or even believe in it, for it to be true. What we sow we will reap (Gal. 6:7). Western world Christians, of whom I am one, have taught for years that we will reap what we sow. We have therefore believed that we must sow in order that we will reap. I believe that there is a higher law, principle, or reality. It is called the law, the principle, and the reality of harvest. It requires the law of sowing and reaping to serve its higher purpose. We do not sow so that we will reap. We know that we will reap so we submit the law of sowing and reaping to the law of harvest because it is one of several laws that serve to fulfill the greater law of harvest. It is by faith that we see harvest and thus we submit the realities that serve that harvest to the cause of harvest’s destiny. God commissioned a harvest before he commissioned the sowing. In the covenant story of creation, the trees in the garden were full of fruit when God placed man in the garden. Adam was able to see harvest before he understood the things that serve that harvest.
Genesis 2:8-9 The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.
Adam was able to see the fruit that was pleasing to his sight and good for food. He was given the commission of tilling the ground, but he was able to see the destiny of the ground before applying the things that serve that destiny.
There is a prophetic significance in the food which God gave man to eat. Man was given food to eat that had seed in it. God knows that the law of sowing and reaping, the law of first things, and some other laws serve the greater law of harvest. We need the law of sowing and reaping but we must know that not everything that we sow was intended by God for us to reap. Not everything that we sow is purposed by God for us to reap, but anything that God purposed for us to reap we must sow in order to reap it. God is not in every harvest that is a result of our sowing, but He is in every harvest that is a result of His word. He is in every harvest that He has determined and there is a specific sowing required in order to accomplish His specific harvest that He decreed.
The food of Jesus was to do the will of Him who sent Him. His food was to eat the thing with seed in it. His earthly life was as a kernel of wheat to be sown for the impending harvest of God in the earth. He came to give us life and life more abundant. He came to give us eternal life. He didn’t come to give us a get out of hell free card. He came to give us life. He came to bring us back into destiny. His target was to bring us back to the goal, the prize, harvest, the finish line, destiny, and purpose. He submitted the law of sowing and reaping, the law of first things, and every other law in order to fulfill the higher law of harvest in the earth.
Jesus didn’t set us free from the law. He set us free from the law of sin and death. It too is a law and it simply says; if you move out of relationship with your life source, you die! For a plant it would mean to be removed from the dirt. To a fish it would be to be removed from the water. For man it means to be removed from God. Anything that takes you from your life source is sin. God is the author and giver of life. Anything that removes you from your life source is sin because God loves life. To be removed from your life source means death, therefore it is sin. There is a law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus. It guarantees for us life if we come back into relationship with God our Father through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. God’s purpose is life. Therefore, we submit the laws of the earth to serve the law of life. God’s heart is for life!
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
