For whatever a man sows, that and that only is what he will reap. – Galatians 6:7b, Amplified Bible

Some years ago an older couple from the northern part of the country retired to sunny Florida. They moved into the late author/speaker Earl Nightingale’s neighborhood, but barely six months after moving in, Earl noticed that the couple was moving out. He asked the husband why they were moving again, and the husband responded that his wife was miserable. She had made no friends since arriving in Florida, and she longed to return to the friends she had left up north. When asked why she had not made any friends, the husband replied, “None of the local ladies have made any effort to reach out to my wife. She feels secluded and shunned.” Earl then asked, “Has your wife made any effort to reach out to those ladies? Do they know that she wants to be befriended?” After a short pause, the husband replied, “No, she hasn’t. She was waiting for the neighbors to make the first move.”

In Galatians 6:7, God teaches us that whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap. In the case of Earl Nightingale’s neighbors, the wife sowed what appeared to the ladies in the neighborhood as anti-social behavior, and she received anti-social behavior in return. This same cause and effect relationship will apply in our lives as well, whether the arena in question is that of business matters, of personal matters, or of spiritual matters.

In Matthew 13:23 Jesus teaches us that Christians will bear fruit for His Kingdom in varying degrees. The difference between the Christians who bear a hundredfold and the ones who bear sixtyfold and thirtyfold has nothing to do with their strength, their intelligence, or their charisma. It has everything to do with how faithfully they sow the things of God in the fields around them. The fruitful Christian is willing to expend time, money, and strength doing the hard work of planting the seeds of Truth and, therefore, reaps a great harvest. The fruitless Christian sows nothing for God and, therefore, reaps nothing in return.

Examine your life. Can you honestly say that you are bearing fruit for Christ? Are you winning souls to Him? Are you leading saved souls that have lost their way back to their Savior? Are you bringing those around you closer to the King? Or, do you reap only things temporal, dreaming of what it would be like to one day harvest spiritual fruit? Whatever fruits you are harvesting today, those are the fruits that you have planted.

Dear friend, we will face our King one day, and He will examine what fruit we have or have not born in His name. When you face Him, will He be able to say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant?” Or, will he be staring at your pair of empty hands?