Friday, June 4, 2010

Even if great behavior and kindness doesn’t bring earthly rewards

Gal 6:7
Do not be deceived and deluded and misled; God will not allow Himself to be sneered at (scorned, disdained, or mocked by mere pretensions or professions, or by His precepts being set aside.) [He inevitably deludes himself who attempts to delude God.] For whatever a man sows, that and that only is what he will reap.

"Paul introduces his call for decision with a solemn warning based on an agricultural principle: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows (v. 7). When people think and act as if they will not reap what they have sown, or as if they will reap something different from what they have sown, they are deceiving themselves and mocking God. But since the inexorable law of reaping what is sown has always been proved true, the proverbial statement of warning God cannot be mocked is also true: no one can mock God and get away with it."

For a long time, people keep telling me this verse as an answer for my situations. And I am always confused. If sowing goodwill will reap goodwill, then it has never happen to me. Because seriously, it doesn't and hasn't!

Someone said: "I always wondered why the last 8 treated you that way." And that person became the ninth.

"Farming metaphors obviously worked very well in societies much dependent on agriculture and the idea of “you reap what you sow,” is that people can expect to harvest the fruit of their behavior, just as farmers expect to harvest the crops that they plant. Therefore, people who go through life “sowing’” kindness and goodness to others, will often be rewarded for their behavior, if not on earth than in eternal life, and those who sow bitterness may face punishment. Paul’s precedes this metaphor with the statement that “God is not mocked,” and this could mean that even if great behavior and kindness doesn’t bring earthly rewards, it will certain bring heavenly ones, while the person who skates through life without acting in a manner approved by God, is not fooling the Creator."

I realized that everyone treats me conditionally. Conditions upon conditions. It isn't biblical. I am really tired of reading through conditions. Do you like being forgiven conditionally? Can I find one more honest person here?

Jesus did it unconditionally.
Stop being conditional.

Because if it was conditional, then Gal 6:7 will not suffice. And the Laws of the Word will befall conditionally, but it shouldn't be now.

I remember the image of the white dove once told to me. Last night I dreamed of the same dove. And this time, the dove nested next to me. I almost cried in that dream. Because the one most precious memory to me... is reassurance that I am not a conditional being.

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