Open Heavens 22 April 2015: Wednesday daily devotion by Pastor E. A. Adeboye – Sowing Before Reaping

Open Heavens 22 April 2015: Wednesday daily devotion by Pastor E. A. Adeboye – Sowing Before Reaping

Memorise: Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. - Galatians 6:7

Read: Galatians 6:7-10

7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

8 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.

9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

10 As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

Bible in One Year: Judges 5:1-6:35, Matthew 25:14-30

MESSAGE:

Our God is great. Not only is He great, He is the greatest. He possesses all wisdom, riches and glory. The plan of God and His delight is for you to prosper (3 John 2). Prosperity here implies abundance, fullness and sufficiency. One thing we need to know is that prosperity does not come by speaking in tongues, but by the wisdom of sowing and reaping.

At a particular time in my ministry, by necessity, I started giving out neckties to elders who were ministering along with me. I then noticed that all my close associates started giving me only neckties upon their return from foreign trips. Out of curiosity, I asked God why this was so. He told me "Son, if you sow a tie, you will reap ties." I then switched to sowing good shoes into the life of those I was sure were of the same shoe size with me. However, the return I got from this did not come as fast as the neckties did. I went back to God to know why, and He told me "Son, if you plant maize and also plant yam, both harvests will come, but not at the same time." Then, I understood the lesson that it is the quality of your sowing that determines the quality of your harvest.

There is a category of people who want to reap without sowing. They can best be described as thieves. It is very wrong to expect a harvest when you have not sown. Make efforts to sow into that particular area of life where you desire a harvest. Entering into your financial breakthrough may not come easy. You have to provoke Heaven to act on your behalf by sowing. No one is poor enough to have nothing to sow. If you check yourself very well, you will realise that there is a seed in your hand you can sow. The Church in Macedonia had so little, yet, they were committed to giving to the work of God (2 Corinthians 8:1-2). In the early days of my joining the Redeemed Christian Church of God, there was a meeting in which my father-in-the-Lord, the late founder of the church, asked all workers to empty their treasury because of an urgent need in the church.

Out of excitement of being privileged to be part of the saints, my wife and I as workers emptied our accounts with nothing left. At the workers meeting the following Sunday, my father-in-the-Lord asked "How many of you have done what I instructed?" Out of excitement to be counted among those who had complied, my wife and I raised our hands and we received the greatest shock of our lives. We discovered that we were the only ones that had compiled! Ashamed, we quickly brought down our hands; but see what the Lord has done with our lives today. The many seeds of those days needed a lot of patience to become the great harvest of God's blessings today.

Key Point: Nobody is entirely poor. There is always a seed in your hand that you can sow.

Open Heavens Daily Devotionalwritten by Pastor E.A. Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God