How do we not grow weary when the heat gets too much? When we look around and the heart-wrenching picture in front of us is not what we wanted?
I love sunflowers. On my drive to work many years ago, I would pass a field full of them. They would stand taller than six feet and bloom each year without fail. A sunflower is one of the few flowers that can grow as tall as ten feet and return every year just as secure. It always amazes me that even in the harshest heat of summer, something so beautiful can flourish and remain strong.
The Need for Strength
In order to flourish, the sunflower requires a strong root system, good soil, and a sturdy stem that supports the flower through sun or storm.
After a few hard and overwhelming weeks, I lay in bed one night thinking about the sunflowers. The vibrant colors, the strength, their roots, and incredible growth. As I lay there, a verse came to mind, Galatians 6:9: “do not grow weary in doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.”
In ministry, as well as in life, giving up is the easy choice when things get hard. We can throw our hands in the air and find something else to do, at least that is what I was thinking as I lay in my bed.
How do we not grow weary when the heat gets too much? When we look around and the heart-wrenching picture in front of us is not what we wanted?
I feel as though I have been confronted so much these last few weeks with believer after believer falling into dangerous sin, or stepping onto a slippery slope that will lead nowhere good. As a women’s ministry leader, my heart can barely handle those moments. I desire to see the women I serve walk holy as God is holy, and yet far too often, we are flippant with sin, or as sisters in Christ, we ignore the sins we see happening around us.
There are days when it is hard to swallow not just what we see in the world but the damage we see happening to those we love.
As I thought of Galatians 6:9, I opened my Bible and began to study the entire passage. There is a great deal more in the verses before and after that speak right to the heart of where we are.
The Need for Discernment
Beginning in verses 7-10, “Don’t be deceived: God will not be mocked. For whatever a person sows he will also reap, because the one who sows to his flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us work for the good of all, especially those who belong to the household of faith.”
Do not be fooled, mislead, or deceived—do not be tricked into believing that sin, any sin, even if it is minor, will not have consequences. If I lie or act in anger, that sin is just as dangerous as any other. There are no varying degrees of sin in the eyes of God. The culture all around us says that a little bit is okay, your happiness is all that matters, and nothing is really all that bad. I have witnessed firsthand the slippery slope of deception; I have experienced it.
God will not be mocked—the word “mock” comes from the Greek mukterizo, which means “to turn up one's nose.” It is a turning up of our noses to God and the things of God. When we willingly sin, when we diminish the appearance of evil or seek to continue in the ways of the world, we are turning up our noses to the things of God and to God himself. It says his command to be holy as he is holy does not apply to us.
For a Christian to deny his sin is to make God a liar and to mock his absolute holiness (1 John 1:10). John Macarthur takes it even further and says, “For a believer to sin willingly in any way and to any degree is to deny his Lord. But to sin while thinking he is somehow immune from God’s standard of holiness is to mock the Lord and mimic the world.”
What do we do when we fall into this trap when we are deceived? What do we do when our sister in Christ has fallen to deception and has traded God’s truth for a lie? How should we respond?
For whatever a person sows, they will also reap—if you sow corn, you will reap corn. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. If we sow sin, we will reap destruction. When we are flippant with the slippery slope, we will reap full-grown sin.
We will give an account for the things done in the flesh. What seeds did we sow?
There is a seed that cannot be destroyed and will do all God set out for it to do. The Word of God will do all God has accomplished it to do (Isaiah 55:10-11). Are we sowing seeds of truth in the lives of those we love, in our sisters in Christ we see slipping?
We guard ourselves against being weakened and destroyed by sowing truth. “You are terribly deceived if you think that God does not deal severely with the sin in the lives of his children,” John McArthur warned. God will root out what we are sowing our souls into.
The Need for Faith
What if we see no tangible results? We trust God with the results.
Do not grow weary; do not lose heart. We will reap at the right time according to the perfect will of God the Father. We may feel faint or weary when we are trusting in our works, or the desires of our flesh rather than allowing God to complete the work he began. We are seed-sowers. We continue to do the work of pouring into others no matter what is happening around us.
Let us work for the good of all, especially our sisters in Christ. This means we don’t keep silent when confronted with sin. We plant seeds of truth in love for them, we need each other to hold one another accountable in this life. This life will always prove dangerous when it comes to sin. We must say the necessary hard things, and we must do it consistently.
We can trust that God will not be mocked. He will do what he says he will do. Our job is faithful obedience.
Like the sunflower, we dig our roots deep into the Word of God, and we find strength there to grow. We are not destroyed in the heat and storm because we are consistently watered with truth. We continue to plant seeds year in and year out, producing more and more flowers deeply rooted and strong.
Photo Credit: ©Pexels/melike benli
Michelle Rabon is helping women be disciples who make disciples. Michelle has her MDiv in Ministry to Women from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and is currently serving as Women’s Ministry Director in her local church. She is also the author of Holy Mess. When she is not writing or teaching, she enjoys reading, being close to the ocean, and drinking a lot of coffee. You can connect with Michelle at www.michellerabon.com
