October is not only for football games and fall color; it’s a month of combines, gravity boxes, and bright lights in the middle of a field as farmers work late into the night to get the harvest in. Listen to what the Bible tells us about a harvest time many years ago with God’s Old Testament people Israel, and the lessons God has for us in this.
It was around 500 B.C.– the people of Israel had recently come back from 70 years of captivity in Babylon (present day Iraq) and were in their own land again. They were living in their own houses, which they had rebuilt, and planting and harvesting in their own fields again. But the harvest was not what they hoped. “You planted much, but harvested little,” God told them through the prophet Haggai (Haggai 1:6 NIV).
Why was that? God explained it to them. “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why? declares the LORD Almighty. Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands.” (Haggai 1:9-11 NIV)
The people didn’t want to be bothered with rebuilding the Lord’s temple, which had been torn down when the Israelites went into captivity. They wanted to have their own houses and stuff all the way they wanted first. Only after that– maybe– would they find time to rebuild the temple. Logically, this should have resulted in greater harvests and more prosperity for them, since by not spending time or wealth on the Lord’s house, they had more time and wealth to put into building their own houses and planting and tending their own fields.
But God didn’t let it work out that way. He made it so that when they put God last in order to have more for themselves, they ended up with less for themselves than if they would have put God first.
God is still in charge today of how successful our work is on this earth– whether it’s farming, factory work, construction, retail, or fixing up our own house or vacation home. He’s also in charge of how our day goes– whether we have time to spare; or unexpected complications eat away all the extra time we thought we had set aside for ourselves.
When we put God last, in order to have more money for ourselves, or more time for ourselves, he may do like he did with the Israelites, and we end up with less money to spare to buy things we wanted to, or less time to enjoy them, then if we would have put the Lord first with our time, wealth, or energy.
The reverse is also true. God inspired the Apostle Paul to write these words to Christians in Corinth around 55 A.D., who were willingly taking part in an offering to help needy fellow Christians around Jerusalem. “Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion.” (2 Corinthians 9:10-11 NIV) Instead of the Christians making themselves poorer by giving away what they had, God would bless them and make them richer than if they hadn’t given, so they could bless yet more people with their gifts. God can do that with our time as well, blessing us so that when we take time to worship him, and to serve him by serving others, he lets our day go in such a way that we get more done and still have more time left than if we hadn’t taken that time out to serve him.
Dear Christians in our community, let these things encourage you to do what your new Christian heart already wants to do. Put your Lord Jesus first, with your time and your wealth, in thanks to Him who put serving and saving you ahead of his own time, health and life; but then rose from the dead to live forever as your Savior!
