Seed and Sowing

And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. (Luke 16:8)

I want us to look at this verse to help us really understand the doctrine of the seed and sowing. It is interesting that people in the other world are living and prospering using the spiritual principles we are teaching unsuccessfully.

You see spiritual principles are applicable and will bear fruit whichever side of the cross you are at. They are existent and will bear fruit whether one knows Christ or not because they are spiritual principles.

Christians are the best placed to practice them because we are in possession of them in the Bible we are supposed to be meditating on day and night. We are also better because we have the living Christ resident in us through His Spirit. It is therefore sad that I have to borrow a lesson from the ones who should be learning these principles from us.

The Quran tells Muslims to ask the people of the book (Christians and Jews) if they do not understand their religion. Isn’t it a rebuke to us that we should be the reason they hate Christianity due to our lack of seriousness?

One big problem we have with the world is a church that is discordant. We say people are being conned because we are not displaying genuine concern. We can’t blame someone who has never seen genuine love being conned by someone showing some fake love. It always takes the genuine to identify the fake. When our faith is put under fire and is proven genuine our witness will automatically flourish.

Back to the seed and sowing. In the parable of the seed, we have four types of soil, only one which was able to produce fruit. That is the reality about sowing. Let me now explain how the other side does it.

I will first look at a drug peddler. Let us take heroin for instance. Heroin costs about 2 million shillings (about $ 25 000) a kilo. That is a lot of money. Yet how do they get people into the habit? They do not sell the drug to beginners. Assuming a dose is 10 grams, this interprets as 20 000/- ($ 250). One does not get addicted by taking one dose. Most times it takes at least five consistent doses to be addicted. Yet the peddler will spend all that money to get someone hooked. Incidentally only a small percentage will be addicted (three unfruitful soils). So how much does the peddler invest in getting a person addicted? Just do your maths.

He does this because he knows that the single addict will pay way above all the ‘wasted’ heroin he gave out as he will kill to ensure he gets a shot. You can be sure that there are more who opt out any time between the first sniff and addiction.

The same happens with other drugs. I have seen tobacco companies invest so much not only to advertise but to offer free samples of their products. In fact they target the children who have no money to buy them because they know it is the most fertile season to sow the seed of addiction.

Free alcohol is easy to get before you become a drunkard. They will buy you for as long as you are not hooked. A brewer is sponsoring a talent search program that pointedly looks for Christians for every part of the program from the searched to the judges to the instrumentalists to the trainers. Why support people whose success will mean certain death for their business? They are sowing the seed. They know there is no way you will be exposed to all that business without being affected. They know you cannot feed from hell and talk badly about it. And of course they know out of all those millions they have a chance of hooking a few people to drunkenness. It saddens me that I even see pastors who are hooked to that program because they may in due time get hooked to the real deal, alcoholism.

That is what sowing the seed means in the scriptures. It simply means looking far ahead and making a worthy investment in the direction knowing that chances of success are not very easy to plan for yet taking the ‘risk’ anyway.

Do we see that in the church? How many of us are willing to spend our money on a vision God has given us when the chances of success are not guaranteed? How many churches are willing to invest their money on hostile territories to get one convert? Will we learn from the drug peddlers how to sow into the kingdom?

Ever seen a man or woman wanting to have sex with someone who is simply unreachable? To what extent will they go to? They will change their behavior and bury any appearance that may make their real motive seen. I have seen people literally stop smoking and drinking for a month or more to make the prey convinced. They will even take a loan to portray themselves in a way that will make them irresistible. Yet that will go as far as the prey getting caught.

How do people get married to unbelievers against the plain teaching of scripture? Many times the unbeliever will package themselves in a way that will make believers look phony and plain stupid. I have dealt with young people leaning in that direction who think that scripture did not consider that brethren are too plain, that the unbelievers are too ‘cool’ to let go. But this also goes as far as the wedding, whether in church or in the bush. I have even seen Muslims and Hindus being so accommodating to the church to be able to hook a Christian youth in marriage. That is the investment I am talking about.

The only difference is that we are the ones with the real deal. We are the ones who have Christ in charge of our lives. We are the ones with the scriptures to give us the accurate description of reality. Why is the world getting results through spiritual pretense against the church that should be showing the world how to live?

Some time ago I was reading about the Silicon Valley with fascination. They were saying that a young man will go to a bank with passion and a design and they will be able to get a bank loan without any other collateral. And no wonder IT is growing so fast!

The church is supposed to be in tune with God. Is it not a shame that a church looks for ministers who are all made up? Where is the church when a person is being called? Should it not be involved from even before then? Why does it need a Masters degree for one to prove that they are called by God who is supposedly running the church?

Should the church not be in the business of raising ministers? Shouldn’t we be like Christ who sought potential that was almost nonexistent when He chose the twelve? Why choose unschooled fishermen from an obscure village? What did He see in a corrupt tax collector? What about the extremist? Like I always say the only person who had any visible talent was Judas because he knew accounts. Yet it was the same character that was farthest from the vision.

It does not stop riling me when I see churches looking for pastors to hire when their business is to raise ministers to change the world. At least that is what I see when I read the Bible.

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: (Ephesians 4: 11 – 13)

I am sure that God sees farther and deeper than our eyes can see. It is therefore plain that I will not need to see potential in the visible if I am in tune with Him. Most likely I will see what others are calling a waste of time, something I have seen as I have been in ministry. I have severally been warned against characters because they are hopeless cases, some dismissed as being beyond God’s reach. Yet God has kept me focused on continued involvement. A few years later the ministers who were warning me are scrambling to benefit from the ministry.

I see the same everywhere I look in scripture. David was not even considered a son by his father but that was God’s choice. Jacob was the wrong kind of man for God to use, yet he was the one chosen. You go through the scripture and that is what you will find with so much regularity.

God did not look for the visible to choose His servants. Is it in order when we are not moving in His direction? Yet you will find the other world spotting potential before people who have the eyes of God have any idea it exists! Surely the devil cannot see better than God! Which I may say is a demonstration that probably we are not being led by God as we like to boast!

But that is not a new thing. Remember when Paul got saved. Even the apostles who had been with Jesus for 3 ½ years could not believe his conversion. It took one Barnabas to see what God had done.

Yet that is not an excuse. I will demonstrate that I am in tune with God’s spirit by operating beyond the sight dimension. Any time I live by sight I am actually demonstrating that I have a real connection with the living Christ.

The same goes for ministry and its support. Very few Christians will think twice about supporting a flourishing ministry without asking whether or not it is serving God’s agenda. There are ministers and ministries that are dens of wickedness yet never fail to get support because they are ‘successful’. Yet this success is just material. Many will not even care to ask whether God requires them to support such. Success in ministry is not judged by material success.

But let us think along the seed/ sowing direction. Suppose you are a parent with children of varying ages. Which child between the toddler and the successful professional needs more support from you? Now translate that into ministry and tell me what God would have you support. Again suppose you want to improve the life of a village. What would you do between promoting the employed by taking them from their employers and employing those with education but without jobs if you are thinking along God’s ways?

Let me wind up all this by asking this question. Have you ever wanted to know what God wants to do with the money and resources you call yours? Have you ever asked Him for direction as to where you should be sowing that seed? Do you know which ministry you should be involved in support wise? Will you pray for clear direction concerning the seed He has placed in your hands?

This is because you will soon be giving an account about that resource God has placed in your hands.

God bless you