50 Days to More: Day Forty-Seven
50 Days to More
A Seven Week Campaign to Begin 2018
Week 7: Sowing Uncommon Seeds with Expectation
Day Forty-Seven (2/22/18): The Daily Seed & The Seed of Honor
Recommended Reading: Matthew 6:1-24
In our recommended reading today Jesus teaches the disciples the famous “Lord’s Prayer”. Part of Jesus prayer says, “Give us this day our daily bread.” In other words, he is asking for provision from the Father to have all that we need or desire for that day. Today we are going to discuss the importance of sowing daily seeds.
Think of it this way. If you want daily bread, you need to sow daily seed. Manna hasn’t fallen from heaven for thousands of years. So if you want to eat bread, and you want to eat bread everyday -- you have to sow seed. If you want to reap daily, then you must sow daily. Some seeds must be sown consistently, methodically, faithfully, and daily!
Sowing daily seeds will continue to create a life of increase in your future, but also it should be our “default setting” or at our core as Christians. Because after all, God is love and our God is a generous God! So generosity should be apart of us too as his disciples. Seeds that you sow daily can be anything that will bless somebody else. Thoughts, love, time, patience, mercy, kindness, prayer, thankfulness, and more are all seeds that someone in your life could need from you today. And with generosity being apart of our DNA, we should sow these daily without hesitation. Not because people deserve it, they don’t. No one does. But we didn’t deserve Jesus’ generous love and mercy either!
Also in this passage Jesus warns the disciples that you cannot serve both God and money. Money is the god of this world. That is why when you give God a financial seed it is more powerful than any other seed you could plant.
When you plant a financial seed, you have given all of you. It takes all you know to earn your money, so now you are bringing God your intelligence. It takes the best hours of your day to create your paycheck, so now you are bringing God your time. It takes your health and energy to solve problems and earn money, so now you are bringing God your very body as an offering. These seeds honor God as first in your life, thus you want to give him all that you have to give!
From the first week of this devotion, we learned that giving to God is always about honor. Our motive behind our giving--in any capacity--should be to honor the receiver. Different types of giving honor God in different ways: whether its tithe, offerings, alms, or seed-faith offerings.
Our tithe honor’s God’s position. By tithing as the Bible instructs, we are acknowledging God as the Master and Lord of our lives.
Our offerings honor God’s person. Offerings are how we express our honor to the person of God, Jesus. That’s what the Bible calls worship.
Our alms giving honors God’s passion. God’s passion is people! When we give alms 2 things happen, God moves closer to us and people move closer to us. We have a passion for what God has a passion for, and we develop closeness and unity with others around us.
Our seed faith offerings honor God’s promises. His promise is that when we give and we will receive a reward in return.
According to Luke 6:38, when we give we should expect that something will be given back to us! He promises to facilitate a harvest when we sow. When you sow a seed, you are scheduling your future harvest. Sow something in someone else’s life today! Be blessed so you can be a blessing!
“Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure--pressed down, shaken together, and running over [with no space left for more]. For with the standard of measurement you use [when you do good to others], it will be measured to you in return.” Luke 6:38 (AMP)
Compiled by Christine Thompson & Meredith Hobbs
Taken from the Sermon Series “7 Steps to One Thousand Times More”
By Pastor Timothy Coats
Family First Church - Spring Hill, Florida