It is Always Planting Season
This is our weekly post here at deposition of our faith. Thank you for joining us.
This is Week 20.
(Although you can start from anywhere, we encourage you to read up on previous posts as well as some articles lead into the next one).
It’s always planting season, folks.
As long as the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest shall not cease. Not just seedtime then harvest. The two of them are ceaseless. What does this mean? Somebody is always planting. The Bible tells us that while men slept, the enemy came and sowed tares. This simply means everything that we have always spoken about here on the blog. The enemy comes to sow tares, and not just because there is room for it. He even comes when there is no room. He comes when all the ridges are full of wheat. He comes every day with thoughts of inadequacy, thoughts of failure, fear, unrighteousness, ill report.
And like we observed a few weeks ago, for some reason, no one has to make a conscious effort to cultivate unwanted plants! Weeds keep springing up in places where they are clearly not wanted. A garden yard does not prune itself. It would grow wild if left untended.
So, it’s always planting season! Do you know what this means? It’s always weeding season too!
This means that you need to be mindful of the things that the Father did not plant. Sometimes, the enemy comes to plant seeds disguised through people you love, people you admire, and people you listen to — the enemy plants seeds in and out of season too. We see in scripture how Jesus rebuked the devil behind the words of Simon Peter, the rock upon which He would eventually build His church. Peter was speaking without regard to the things of God, minding not the fact that he already knew that Jesus was the Christ (in the same Matthew 16:16–17 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven).
Then, Matthew 16:22–23
Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.
But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest, not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
Jesus Christ was intentional (and direct) in his rebuke because He understood that those words were seeds. And these were not just regular seeds. These were the hardy, fast propagating, subtle seeds of weeds sent from the enemy. Remember the parable of the sower? When some heard the word, with joy, they received it. However, the thorns (the issues of life, offence, the love for this world) choked the word of life out of them. Notice we aren’t even told that those thorns had to be cultivated. They just choked up the good seed that wasn’t cultivated.
What are the things that the devil plants? What are his cash crops?
Doubt — We saw seeds of doubt at work in Thomas, who couldn’t believe in the resurrection of Christ until he saw it in the flesh (which was not a move of faith, but doubt).
Offence — We saw it in John the Baptist when he asked Jesus if he was the messiah, (“…or should we wait for another?”. This was a man that foretold the coming of Jesus and knew for sure that this was the messiah. “Behold, the Lamb of God, who comes to take away the sins of the world”). We also saw it in Matthew 13:57 that the people took offence in Jesus, and He could in that city do no mighty works.
Fear — We saw the seed of fear planted in Simon Peter manifest on the sea when he tried to walk on water with Jesus.
Vainglory, lusts, pleasures — which ultimately lead to unrighteous living. We saw this at work in Amnon, David, Gehazi, Herod, Solomon.
We should understand as believers that we are supposed to be intentional about how we live our lives. I once heard a quote that said, “know what you want, and say no to anything that isn’t it.” That’s one strategy to evading what you don’t want. If you are trying to grow maize, you have to weed out any unwanted crop. It doesn’t matter if it’s cocoyam. If cocoyam can distract you enough to affect your maize business’ bottom line, then it has to go.
Paul tells us something in scripture. He says, “everything is lawful for me, but not everything is expedient”. Many of the thoughts that we fill our minds with are not even unlawful. They are just not profitable at all. We spend a lot of valuable time that we could be using planting (or weeding) just watching crops that we didn’t sow growing out of our prepared maize farm. Remember that It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. We are preoccupied with things that don’t even matter, friends that we were not intentional about making, activities that we were not intentional about planning, and habits that we were not intentional about cultivating or breaking. And this is something that we need to understand: nobody exploits unplanned/unscheduled/unstructured activities like the devil does. If you don’t know what you’re gaining from a project/relationship/activity, then the odds are you might not notice what you are losing from it.
We saw Jonadab was used for sowing evil seeds within his friend Amnon. So we know that friends can sow seeds. That is not to say that friendships are malicious or unnecessary, but we should be intentional about the friends we keep and how their words affect us.
Idleness is another peak planting season for the enemy. An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.
So how do we know what seeds are of God and what is not of God?
I know two surefire ways.
One is Philippians 4:8. Whatever things are lovely, good report, virtuous and praiseworthy, should dominate your thoughts.
Next, I also know Jesus’ rebuke to Peter.
… for thou savourest, not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
At every point in time, as a believer, what God wants for your life is more important than what any man wants. This doesn’t just mean in terms of your future, or ministering the gospel, or doing God’s “work”. It also means that when men say stealing is acceptable, it doesn’t automatically make it right-standing. When men think strife is natural and acceptable, it doesn’t mean that it is the will of God concerning us. When men think division and murmuring are understandable, it doesn’t mean that things should be so.
The things of men are oftentimes simply just the opposite of what God wants for us. The Bible tells us that the flesh warreth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. The people who sow unto the flesh will reap corruption of the flesh. It’s called sowing because, as I said, these things are seeds. And you reap what you sow.
Paul said, “walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” This is because those that sow unto the spirit shall always of the spirit reap eternal life.
Man’s vanity leads to all manner of crimes. Greed alone can take the blame for a sizeable amount of crimes in the world today. Covetousness of power, money, and belongings makes many people live very miserable, complicated lives. “The way of the transgressor is hard”. However, it is always important to take note of these seeds. They are, I daresay, in every single person. Everybody had the potential to do as much evil as the good they have done, and vice versa. However, we are to cultivate seeds and not just leave the bushes to grow wild. Do you know an example of somebody who had the ultimate potential for good and became the forebearer of evil tidings? Lucifer. Another example of somebody who didn’t quite meet potential? Have you forgotten a certain Solomon? Or perhaps we should state a most recent example, which goes by the name Judas (Iscariot).
If no one ever puts the time towards spiritual growth, never puts resources towards it, it doesn’t just automatically grow! Your faith would slowly die down to the level of a once in a year TikTok scripture recital craze! If you leave your hair to grow, the odds are it won’t just fall into place as a permed ponytail just because that’s what you want. You need to cultivate the things you want in this world, even if they are good things. In fact, especially when they are good things! You need to understand that it’s always planting season. We are now sowing what we would reap in a while’s time, and we are also reaping what somebody sowed a while ago.
May God help us to understand and practice the things that would change our lives in Jesus name.
God bless you all!
