Sowing to the Spirit: Reaping Eternal Life | Devotional

“…whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” —GALATIANS 6:8

Sowing to the Spirit is to actively plant the things of the Spirit. To deliberately and earnestly be taken up with what pleases God and satisfies His agenda is to sow seeds that germinate, grow and produce the fruit of life in all its fullness. This applies in our lives to both the present and the future.

To love Jesus Christ, to love His word, to live in submission to Him, to obey His instructions and be dependent on Him is to be sowing good seed into good soil. Paul describes the harvest of this good seed when he says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23). He lists nine qualities, but he does not say, “The fruits of the Spirit are…” in the plural. He says “fruit of the Spirit” – singular. We may reduce these qualities to just one word and call the fruit of the Spirit ‘character’. We may be even more specific and say, “The fruit of the Spirit is the character of Jesus Christ.”

God holds no greater ambition for us than to become like His Son as a result of the presence and working of His Spirit in us. These qualities are the fruit of the Spirit therefore they are divine in origin and supernatural in expression. The harvest, however, does not come overnight. In 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul tells us, “We are being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory,” glory being the character of God. It is a process that begins the moment we are indwelt by the Spirit and will continue throughout our lifetime. Paul writes, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). 

God is totally committed to reproducing the character of His Son in us – and He is doing it! We will be the last people to see this in ourselves because we will be conscious of the old nature fighting against the Spirit to keep us from doing what we would like to do, and we will also be able to present every reason in the world to be discouraged. But others will see Christ in us. We will be conscious of the battle; they will see the victory. We will know the struggle; they will see the rest. That is why our task is to “fix our eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2), be taken up with Him and His interests, and leave the consequences with God.

Dear Lord, I want to be wholly taken up with You, and pray for a deeper and fresher work of your Spirit in conforming me to your likeness. Thank You, Lord.

Is my life focused on Jesus?