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Seasons
Once the dirt has control, things begin to CHANGE!

            Seedtime!


I’m always so enthusiastic about Spring! I love seeing the new growth. I know it happens every year, but it never gets old to me.   When that little hint of green starts to appear on the trees as I look through the woods, it’s amazing to think that in just a few weeks, the leaves will have taken their place in nature, and almost without me realizing, the forest is full of green once again.  
While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. Gen 8:22
You know, I didn’t have to DO anything for Spring to arrive. God put the seasons in place from the beginning, and every new season is a reminder of His faithfulness. I don’t have to DO anything for the sun to rise in the morning or set in the evening.  Every DAY should remind us that He is faithful! 
This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.   Lam 3:21-24
Let me call your attention once again to Genesis 8:22. God tells us that as long as the earth remains, there will be mornings and evenings (without any help from you), cold and heat (without any help from you), summers and winters (you get the idea)… The only thing in that verse that requires cooperation from us is seedtime and harvest. We must plant and we must reap! The growing part is up to God, and we can see His faithfulness to make it happen:  every morning the sun comes up! As long as you are faithful to plant, God will see to it that there will be something to reap!
Sounds easy, doesn't it?  To the person whose trust is in God, it is easy.  If you're dominated by your flesh instead of your spirit however, you might tend to be a bit stingy when it comes to planting.  How do you know if you're a stingy planter?  It's not about the amount of seed you sow, but rather the attitude of your heart when you sow.  God is ALL about the heart!  What's your attitude about your seed when you put it in the offering?  Do you look at it and wave goodbye like you'll never see your money again, whining about your bills?  If so, consider any kind of natural seed (don't even think about your money).  When you put a seed in the dirt, you only say goodbye to it in that form. Once the dirt has control (which means YOU don't) things begin to CHANGE! It’s no longer just a seed; it becomes something else entirely. Without ANY help from you (besides a little water), it grows and produces much more than what you put in the ground!  Why would anyone want to hold on to seeds when (with just a little patience) he can enjoy the fruit instead? 
Mark 4:26-29, NIV, He (Jesus) also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground.  Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.   All by itself the soil produces grain — first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.   As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come." 
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. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.  Gal 6:7-10
                   We have the easy part!
Friend, we have the easy part! We sow, we believe, we reap! What do we believe? Do we have to know HOW God is going to cause that seed to grow? You might say, “Well, I’m just believing that my seed is growing.” You don’t even have to “believe” that. It IS growing. God keeps His covenant! Every time you look outside you should remind yourself of the evidence! Did the sun come up? What does the economy (good or bad) have to do with sowing and reaping? What does an x-ray or a blood test have to do with the fact that Jesus, Himself, took your infirmities and sicknesses (1 Peter 2:24)?  Remember, what God promised, He is able to perform! 
When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said He would do. And so he was made the father of a multitude of peoples. God Himself said to him, “You’re going to have a big family, Abraham!” Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child.” Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what He had said. Romans 4:18-21, The Message
Our focus must be on God and what He said. Now is not the time to take our eyes off of Him. When the children of Israel were in the desert and the snakes were biting, God instructed Moses to make a serpent of brass and put it on a pole (Numbers 21). As long as the people kept their eyes on that pole, and not on the snakes, they were healed.  Obviously, that takes faith! Of course we’re all tempted to look down, because we’re being bitten! But that doesn’t change the promise! We must continue to do what God said, to get His promised results. 

                  The Sun Comes Up Every Day!

God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah to Israel, reminding them of His covenant with David. Let’s first look at how the King James version puts it. 
Jeremiah 33:20-26 Thus saith the LORD; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season ; Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers. As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me. Moreover the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying, The two families which the LORD hath chosen, he hath even cast them off? thus they have despised my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.  Thus saith the LORD; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth;  Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them.
The above portion of scripture can be summed up this way, from The New Century Version:  “This is what the Lord says: I have an agreement with day and night that they will always come at the right times. If you could change that agreement, only then could you change my agreement with David and Levi”…. “If I had not made my agreement with day and night, and if I had not made the laws for the sky and earth, only then would I turn away from Jacob’s descendants.”
And if that’s not powerful enough, here’s the New Living Translation: “This is what the Lord says: If you can break my covenant with the day and the night so that one does not follow the other, only then will my covenant with my servant David be broken”… “I would no more reject my people than I would change my laws that govern night and day, earth and sky.”
Glory to God! Why would we ever question God keeping His part? That’s why we say that His mercies are new every morning! He demonstrates it every day. 
So if we have the easy part, what is it?   
But I will sing of thy power; yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning: for thou hast been my defense and refuge in the day of my trouble.  Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing: for God is my defense, and the God of my mercy. Ps 59:16-17
We praise! (And I don’t just mean during the worship portion of the Sunday service.) Praise is acknowledging God – communicating with Him about His promises. Death and life are in your mouth.   It’s your choice. You can whine and complain, but the devil will use it for his “glory”. Why not train yourself like the wise man in Proverbs 16:23?  “The heart of the wise instructs his mouth, and adds learning to his lips.” (World English Bible) Put God’s Word in your heart, and speak His promises even while the snakes are biting! Look out of your window – did the sun come up? Even if it’s midnight, joy comes in the morning!