Relationships: A Harvest Mentality
Author: Paul Tripp
Category: Uncategorized
God’s Word really does open up to us the mysteries of the universe. It really does make us wiser than we could ever be without it. And yet, having said this, it's sad that we don’t take more advantage of this wisdom God has given us.
It's sad that we don’t think his thoughts after him. It's sad that we don’t require ourselves to look at life through the lens of his revelation. It's sad that we swindle ourselves into thinking that we're wiser than we are. It's sad that we're not irritated by our foolishness. It's sad that we're not motivated to seek his help.
One of the places you see this most clearly is in the struggles we experience in our relationships. I don't know if you remember, but before the Advent season started, we were in the middle of an 8-part series on Relationships. We completed five of those devotionals before December came around- you can review them all here.
Over the next three weeks, we'll wrap up this series by looking at relationships through three perspectives derived from biblical wisdom. These perspectives, or mentalities, are essential to creating and sustaining a healthy relational lifestyle.
1) YOU MUST LIVE IN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH A HARVEST MENTALITY:
The Apostle Paul captures this mentality with these very familiar words: “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). This is an essential mentality if you want to live with habits of reconciliation. You have to buy into the principle of consequences.
What's the principle of consequences? Here it is: there’s an organic relationship between the seeds you plant and the fruit you harvest. In the physical world you will never plant peach pits and get apples. In the same way, there will be organic consistency between the seeds of words and actions that you plant in your relationships and the quality of harvest that you will experience later as you live and relate to one another.
Every day you harvest relational plants that have come from the seeds of words and actions that you previously planted. And every day you plant seeds of words and actions that you will later harvest.
Most of the seeds you plant will be small, but one thousand small seeds that grow up into trees will result in an environment-changing forest. Your relationships are continuously planted with little-moment seeds of words and actions which grow into the forest of either love or trouble.
God bless
Paul David Tripp
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
- Look at your daily schedule. What competes against God's Word?
- How can you seek help from the Word of God?
- What relational seeds have you planted over the past week?
- What relational plants have you recently harvested?
- How can you share this “harvest mentality” with others?
Posted on August 15, 2013