Sowing and Reaping should be considered like Gravity.  With gravity, when we jump off of the ground then we will come back to the ground because of the gravity of the earth with our body.  We cannot stop gravity from happening. 

As we mature in our Christianity, we will become very cognizant in observing that God absolutely has our actions good and bad, called sowing and reaping, having results in our lives and others.  This is true for the Christian, and absolutely the people that are not Christians. 

These are some of the main points of Sowing and Reaping

1. The Christian, has the benefit of Mercy applied to receive less in negative consequences in sinful actions.
2. The Christian has additional benefits in positive rewards because of Grace for being and doing good.
3. God may extend Mercy in lesser negative consequences to someone, that is not a Christian, when doing wrong.
4. God may reward Grace in benefits for someone doing good things, who is not a Christian, for God's Glory which always has benefits for more than one person.

The Axiom of Sowing and Reaping

One of the greatest revelations that God has built into His Creation dealing with the actions of all people that have Salvation and those that do not have Salvation is absolutely everyone during their life will:

1. Suffer consequences for the smallest of infractions to the most heinous against God and others, where only the Christian has scriptural guarantees of Grace and Mercy on how God administrates the consequences.
2. Will be rewarded for the smallest acts of kindness to the most wonderful acts of love, charity and serving God and others.

In this author's life choices, the Holy Spirit has often brought into my memory, for teaching me, the connections of both good and bad choices with the consequences that has absolutely shaken my perceptions on how powerful, all-knowing, in control, and is not mocked with these two informational points of many:

1. I love God more and more for Grace and Mercy in sowing and reaping in the good and bad things I have done.
2. I recognize the pattern of evil done unto me, when I did not cause it to happen, that caused me to receive blessings along with see the perpetrators suffer in increased magnitude of what they have done to me.

An extreme example of evil deeds suffering extreme consequences

This author has the following extreme example that occurred in the year 1993, when I was partners with three other men in a software system, that I was the designer and programmer.  After completion, my other partners decided that I was not needed so literally locked the doors on me.  These partners made a large amount of money.  I filed a lawsuit against the company that took six years to get to the courts because of delay tactics and volume of cases in the city I live in with two million residents at that time. 

Months before reaching a trial date, my previous partners sold the company knowing that I was about to win the lawsuit.  Unfortunately, I could not go after them personally and got nothing.  Within a year of the trial cancellation::

• The first partner, that was the main instigator of the theft and was the computer hardware designer, died at the age of 44 years old of stomach cancer leaving behind a young daughter and widow who became financially bankrupt. 
• The financial lead partner had his two McDonald's restaurants fail, which at that time rarely occurred.  His wife divorced him, he had to declare bankruptcy, and had many more calamities.
• The last partner, had his wife divorce him and from what I was told by some mutual contacts, he had to move to a rural area of Arkansas to get a very lowly position working at a health and fitness gym.
• I went on to do very well financially with a great full-time job and residual monthly income in some software systems that had me perform after-hours maintenance.

Ignoring Both Sides of Sowing and Reaping, along with Incorrect Belief of Prosperity

1. Successful living,
2. Sowing and reaping to get something beneficial through faith and tithes,
3. Sowing Tithes in faith for desired financial outcomes, and
4. Abundant life through faith.

These types of beliefs are absolutely correct, as they are based in seeking God in faith.  Mistakenly, all good sowing does not reap all benefits in our Earthly lives but absolutely apply to rewards in Eternity.  A common expression that has been heard by most likely all of us at one time is:

"You cannot out give God, and God will be no debtor to any person."

which is based liberally on these scriptural passages of 1 Chronicles 29:12-14, Romans 11:33-36, Malachi 3:10 and the principles of Tithing:

Unfortunately, all of us should have the following three points as a complete perception from the scriptures, where the last two are often ignored:

1. All benefits from faith, may not yield blessings from God in our earthly life.  Indeed, it should be obvious to realize that it is better to have Rewards in Heaven than any temporary rewards in our short life on Earth as compared to Eternity. 
2. There are actions, which are sinful that often will have negative consequences for us, while it is impossible to lose our Salvation.
3. There are actions, which are not sinful, but seen or heard by someone else that makes them commit sinful actions.  When this occurs, we can experience negative consequences. 

There are Pastors and Evangelist, who give great messages on Christianity, which incorrectly might state that we can have both great rewards in our Earthly lives and Eternity.  While this sounds wonderful, the great rewards in our earthly lives simply isn't truthful when considering the totality of the scriptures with the evidence of great Christians in history:

• There are Christians who were martyred throughout history and are being currently being martyred right now, where they knew the benefits along with love of God that exhorted them to never be able to deny Jesus Christ. 
• All of the Apostles had many obstacles in their lives, where many of their lives ended martyrdom.
• The Apostle Paul prayed three times for his infirmity to be removed, where the Holy Spirit informed Paul that the Grace of God was sufficient for Paul, as read in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10.

Our rewards in life are to be living pleasing lives for God and each other to give glory to God with the ultimate knowledge that our earthly lives will be rewarding now and especially in Eternity at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Grace and Mercy Applies More than Perceived

The unfortunate belief by all of us, until we grow in maturity through Faith, is the thought that we are deserving of great rewards in our life by the simplest of things done that we feel are worthy and righteous.  We also can incorrectly think that God will allow us to anything we need in life to obtain happiness, even with it at the expense or being sinful to others.  These two perceptions are often perpetuated by the way of the Gospel is given in Church and by Christians, were our sins have no consequences because of Jesus Christ.

The correct scriptural understanding of the Christian benefits is:

• Through Grace, God gives us many benefits, blessings and gifts that are not earned. 
• Through Mercy, God does manage the consequences of our sins, and uses all suffering for our benefit to learn, where ultimately it will lead us to growing in love for God even when it is difficult to understand when going through anything painful.

The paramount goal for us all is to obtain a deeper relationship with God that is only possible through Jesus Christ.  When we are growing in our Christian life, we are then able to realize that ultimately, we will be at the Judgment Seat of Jesus Christ to receive the benefits of a life that was pleasing to our Judge Jesus Christ. 

Overlooked and Ignored

Many of us are familiar with Romans 8:1, which states that there is no condemnation, but this often taken out of context as the scripture is dealing with Salvation through Jesus Christ, and actually pertains to us living our lives to a higher level of accountability through the Law of the Holy Spirit who indwells us.

We all will have positive and negative consequences in our lives for righteous living and also for sinful actions. While all of our sins are forgiven and cannot cause the loss of our Salvation, there is always consequences which:

• Requires God to immediately forgive us through Jesus Christ,
• Requires God to apply Mercy for us through Jesus Christ, that can even remove some or all consequences, and
• Requires God to apply Grace to us through Jesus Christ, which gives us blessings and rewards that we did not earn.

As one of the most beneficial examples in the scriptures is the life of King David.  In King David's life he committed adultery, and then committed murder to cover up the adultery, where King David was absolutely forgiven but had life-time consequences.  King David never lost his love for God and God always loved David, where David has a special role in the 1,000 Millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ.  Two primary points:

• One of many proofs of the Bible, being from God, is we all can read of the great men and women in the scriptures who were not perfect and failed at different points.  If the Bible was a fictional book, where the authors were trying to deceive, then the great men and women would be somehow perfect.
• King David suffered many, many things such:
  (a) as the temporary loss of his kingship,
  (b) his own son Absalom betraying him,
  (c) the raping of one his daughter's Tamar through incest, and
  (d) even the premature death of a baby.  Note the baby was covered through the Age of Accountability principle unto Salvation.

As already noted in this topic, we are no longer under the Old Law of the Old Testament, but we are now under a more comprehensive Law of the Holy Spirit.  The new Law of the Holy Spirit absolutely gives us Grace and Mercy, along many other benefits such as the Holy Spirit guiding us away from sin. 

When we sin, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross forgives us of our sin where there still can be consequences to our lives on Earth with also the potential loss of Rewards in Heaven.  In other words, Jesus Christ paid the price for the entirety of all sins of humankind, so that everyone could have entrance into Heaven with God the Father, God the Holy Spirit and God the Son. 

The misunderstanding is the thought that Jesus Christ's payment allows us to sin without consequences.  The exciting thought from the scriptures to remember is God will use all negative consequences of sins, known as suffering, for the Christian's benefit if we respond correctly, which will lead us to love God more and more.

Consider these rhetorical questions, regarding sins that we all could or have committed:

• How can God ignore murder and not require the murderer to face criminal justice?  
• What about the theft of private property when caught by the police? 
• If someone were to use false information to knowingly sell a product that did not perform as guaranteed?
• If anyone were to gain the spouse of another by adultery?

These three scriptures, of many scriptures, informs us that we will reap negatively.  Also, we can lose the ability for God to hear our prayers.

Patterns shown in the Scriptures

The scriptures are replete with patterns which are one of many proofs of the scripture's authenticity from God.  It is impossible to have 40 authors spread out over thousands of years to write 66 books where there is consistency in terminology, phrases, the message and so much more. 

One of several patterns of consequences in the scriptures is the life of Jacob, who later is renamed by God to be called Israel.  Jacob's father, Isaac, was near death, nearly blind and he wanted to give the very important blessing to the first born, which should have gone to Esau.  Esau was Jacob's twin brother, who was born first.  At the birth of the twins, God let Isaac, and Isaac's wife Rebekah, know that the older would serve the younger, which meant Jacob would inherit the blessing, but the problem was Jacob stole the blessing

The blessing and inheritance of the first born was very important and had many financial inheritance rewards along with being the priest of the family, where God would honor with additional blessings.  Jacob stole the blessing by pretending to be Esau with the help of his mother, Rebekah.  The story is read in Genesis 27:1-45, where the deception part is Genesis 27:15-19.

First part of consequence by deception

Jacob ends up receiving the stolen blessing, but has to escape to Haran in fear of being killed by his brother Esau.  When Jacob gets to Haran, he spends fourteen years working for his relative, Laban, to have Laban's daughter Rachel for his wife. 

Laban treats Jacob unfairly in many businesses dealing along with tricking Jacob into first taking Laban's oldest daughter Leah for his wife, after seven years of promising to work for Rachel as wife.  Jacob then works for another seven years for Rachel to be his wife. 

During the whole time, God prospers the work of Jacob despite the treacherous deceptions of Laban, where Jacob finally leaves Laban with his two wives, two lesser wives, and the children who would become the Twelve Tribes of Israel. 

Second part of the consequences by deception

God later renames Jacob to Israel, where many years later, there were sons of Israel who despised the favoritism that Israel gave one of his sons Joseph.  The other sons, except for Benjamin, resort to deceiving Israel into believing Joseph was killed by bringing Israel the coat of Joseph with sheep's blood thrown on it.  In actuality, Joseph was thrown in a pit for three days, and then sold into slavery that had Joseph being taken to Egypt where God had Joseph eventually rise into the position of Prime Minister underneath Pharaoh.

The casual reading of the narrative in the scriptures, which was just given at a very high-level summary, would have the reader potentially miss the consequential pattern God used on Jacob, who becomes Israel.  Note that God has prophesized that Jacob would be the favored son with the blessing of the first-born, but Jacob took the blessing in a way that God would not have intended.

Notice that Jacob deceived his father Isaac by the use of a goat skin to simulate hairy arms and hairy back of his brother Esau.  Later Jacob (Israel) was deceived through a coat, which was made from goat or sheep skins.  Both incidents involved the similarity of deception through animal skins, where Jacob (Israel) was tricked by the same items which he had used.

In the case where Jacob was deceived, the deception and pain of it was far worse than the consequences that Isaac felt when being deceived by Jacob.  In the deep contrast, the scriptures show that Jacob (Israel) felt the pain for multiple decades until the eventual reunion with Joseph in Egypt when Joseph was Prime Minister.  There are scriptures such as Proverbs 6:30-31 that describe the penalty for theft requires payment of sevenfold for the amount stolen to the victim.

God gives us great love in His Grace and Mercy, where even in the history of the life of Jacob (Israel), God worked all of the problems, deceptions, loss of time to eventually reward those involved when they recognized God in the process.  Joseph was meant to go to Egypt and prepare away to save Israel's entire family, with their wives and children, from a very severe period of seven years of famine.  Joseph forgave his brothers and showed that he (Joseph) had recognized God in all of the processes, which then gave God the Glory and everyone blessings.

Scriptural Example of Exact Consequences Reaped

In the Tribulation Period there will be many punitive consequences and amazing judgments against the Earth such as the Seven Seals.  An interesting judgment, which God exactly distributes to those who murder Christians and non-Christians, is read in Revelation 13:10 shown below.  Those who murder others, will be killed in the same method, which is precise example sowing and reaping. 

For more information on the passage dealing with verses surrounding Revelation 13:10, see the topics:

• The Rapture and explaining the disappearance of true Christians from the Earth.
• Tribulation Period

Two Personal Amazing Incidents Experienced

The following two incidents happened to this author, which I absolutely know God was involved in effect of repaying the sowing of good deeds where there is a pattern of what was sowed was reaped.

For the background, before describing the two incidents:

I have been a life-time runner since the age of 8 years old, and it is remarkable how often I see nails and screws on the roads, which most likely have fallen inadvertently out of the back of construction vehicles.  When running, I'll quickly reach down and pick up the nail or screw, and then throw it into the grass off the side of the Road. 

Also, I have also on occasion helped people change a flat tire.  There was an incident in 1989, when it was literally pouring down rain and I was on the way home from work, where the one-lane exit lane to the left on a freeway suddenly had all the cars stopped.  I was a few cars behind a vehicle ahead of me that stopped and the car had just put on the emergency car flashers.  I waited for a few moments, realizing all the cars behind me couldn't back up and we couldn't go forward, so I got out of the car with no umbrella and walked up to the stranded car. 

There was a woman driving the car who rolled down her window (this is before all cars had power-windows and no one had mobile phones) and she told me her car's engine stopped running and won't start.  I asked her to put the car in neutral and I managed to push the car to the side of the very narrow exit ramp, in order for cars to squeeze by.  Next, I told her I am a Born-Again Christian, so she could trust me, and come with me to my car so that I can get you somewhere to call for help.  I decided to take her to my house which was nearby, where my wife got her some dry clothes and I ended up giving her a ride to her house where someone in her family could help her more.  She tried to give us money, but we said it was not needed, and we wouldn't take it.

Incident One

In 2016, my daughter had gone back to college and was driving an old 2004 Honda Pilot which was safe to drive but had some problems at high speeds over 55 MPH, which caused the right front wheel to vibrate.  She was only driving to/from college and job so the car was great for that purpose. 

Unfortunately, she wanted to go to Austin to see a boyfriend which she had broken up with and I told her not to do that because her tire would probably have a problem and possibly go flat with a vibrating wheel.  Unbeknownst to me, she went to Austin, and on the way back she had a flat-tire where she called me where she managed to drive her car off of the interstate highway to a nearly abandoned small-stores center that only had a convenience store in front of a gas station that no longer provided gasoline or air for tires.

After driving for an hour and half to find her from my job, I pulled up to her car to see the right front-tire was in shreds.  I next went to look at the spare-tire to find it was flat and there was no car-jack wrench.  At that point, she was in tears and she could see that I was very angry because I was thinking how to get the car towed to a Tire store, where we were in a nearly desolate area of the interstate highway outside of Houston, TX.  All of a sudden, I heard a voice from behind me say, "Hi, do you need some help?".   Without turning around, I said "Yes I do!".

The next thing I know, this man starts talking while working stating:

1. "Well, your spare-tire is flat.  No problem I'll pump it up using my truck."
2. "Give me a moment to get my Jack-System and I'll get your car up so that we can get the old wheel off."
3. I turn around to see this man had his 18-Wheeler Tow Truck parked quite a distance away from us at this nearly abandoned small-stores center.
4. Within 15 minutes, this man had the spare-tire filled with air from his Truck's air-pump system, and put on my daughter's car.  I tried to assist him, but he did everything in amazing speed.
5. Next, he told us that the spare-tire, often known as a donut-spare-tire, is only good for about 50 miles, so he told us exactly where to drive to get a new tire for the one that had been shredded.
6. I tried to get the man to take some money and he wouldn't accept it.  He said he was a Christian and just felt led by God to help us.

There is absolutely no explanation for this occurring other than God's direct 100% intervention to send someone to help with perfect timing.  Someone driving this type of 18-Wheeler Tow Truck is in high demand and also very expensive to hire where the odds of all of the coincidents to have happen is beyond probability or happenstance.

(Note: this is not the actual truck, but it was just like the one from the man who helped my daughter and me.
Photo from public domain, so unknown credit to give to photographer.  If this is your photo, please contact website.)

Instance Two

In September of 2019, my wife and I took a trip from Houston, TX through many States of the mid-west.  On the second day of the trip, we were on an interstate highway that was not near any town or city.  We were perhaps 30 or miles from Welch, TX, when our rented car had a flat tire. 

I pulled off the side of the road and was looking at the tools provided to put on a donut-tire spare tire, when I heard a voice, from a truck that pulled up beside our car, "Hey you guys need some help?".  I said "yes" and the man said "the first thing you need to do is pull off to that side-road leading to that farm to get you off of this interstate road so you don't get accidentally hit by an 18-Wheeler.  That farm is my buddy Mickey's farm, so he won't mind." 

Note that this was Saturday afternoon around 4pm, so even if I managed to get the spare-tire on the car, I was next worried on how I could drive anywhere to get the flat-tire fixed as we still had three hours of driving to go to our next destination on interstate roads where there were really no places to get a tire fixed that were possibly open on a later Saturday afternoon.

The man who stopped to ask us if we needed help, is named Royce where he and his wife Lisa, said they felt led to help us.  Here's what happened:

1. Royce got on the phone and located a local mobile truck repair service that will fix flat tires on the interstate.  The man driving the truck ended up being an old friend of Royce's and was about to be off work for the day but got to us in 20 minutes.
2. The flat tire ended up having two different drilling bits that had punctured the tire in two different places. 
3. The flat tire was a 19" specialty sports car tire where if we had found a tire store, they would most likely not have had the tire in stock or could have easily found one on a late Saturday afternoon.
4. The guy who fixed the flat tire said he felt the tire was fixable even though he said a tire store would not take the liability of doing so.
5. We ended up have a nice time talking with Royce, Lisa, Mickey (who showed up at the same-time) and the tire truck repairmen who I can't recall his name.  Royce and Lisa invited me and my wife Genia to dinner, where we unfortunately had to decline where we told them we were on a tight schedule, so we exchanged addresses and phone numbers.  We told them if we are ever near Welch, Tx in the future, we promised to meet up for dinner, and they said if they were ever in Houston, Tx they would look us up.
6. When we got back home from the vacation, we sent them a $50 gift card with a thank you card.  Lisa called my wife to see how the vacation went.

Just like Incident #1 above, we recognized the absolute guidance of timing by God to arrange help for us at a place that would have been impossible for us to continue without it. 

This author is not saying that if I had not picked up nails and screws off of the road all the times while running for exercise along with helping the woman at age 29, that God would not have sent people to help.  What I am trying to impart is the concept of sowing and reaping in due time.

What to read next?

The Crucifixion Psalm, Abraham's Location with Isaac,  Risen - 4 Gospels and is there a discrepancy on Easter? and Noah's Ark rests the day before Christ's Resurrection.  What is Salvation?  Is it is possible to lose Salvation?  We have eternal life.  Evolution is not real.  When a Christian suffers is there benefits from it.  Rewards in heaven.  Do we Tithe?  What does the 3rd Commandment tell us?  What is Grace and Mercy?  Is there an Age of Accountability?  Is there a place of unending punishment and exile form God?