What Kind of Consequences do Your Sacrifices Reap?

Scripture: Genesis 4:9-10

Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" And he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" He said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground. "Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. "When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth."

Insights: Every decision and action we make has a consequence.  Cain, for example, killed his brother.  The consequence of such an action was the ground would not cultivate crops for him and he would be a vagrant and a wanderer throughout the earth.  Just as Cain reaped a harvest of cursing for his action of murder, so we, reap a harvest of blessing or cursing for our actions as well.  Let me explain this from a positive perspective (considering Cain gives us a negative one).  We are presently reading through the Bible in one year as a church.  If you are joining us in this campaign, then you are sowing seeds of Bible reading in your life.  Now, do you think that as you read through the Bible there will be times in which you will read something and find that it applies directly to your life right now?  The answer is an obvious “yes!”  Do you think after a year of reading the Bible your attitude and way of handling difficult situations will be different?  Again, the answer is a resounding “yes!”  If you continued reading the Bible every day for the rest of your life, you would reap a harvest of righteousness that would amaze and astound you.  Beloved, we are called to live holy lives because the Lord our God is holy.  I encourage you to think about the consequences of your words and deeds before you commit to them.  There will be consequences.  Some consequences will be positive and helpful and others will be negative and harmful.  The amazing part is you get to choose how you are going to respond to every situation in your life.  Beloved, choose obedience to the Father.  I promise you it will be worth everything in the end.

Questions:

1. What are you presently reaping in your life from your previous times of sowing seed?
2. What kind of seed are you willing to sow from this day forward?

Prayer: Father, I understand there are consequences to my action.  Some of those consequences are positive and some of them are negative.  I pray You empower me to sow seeds of faith and grace me with a harvest of righteousness.  Amen.