While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.” Genesis 8:22 (Modern English Version, MEV)

He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. Mark 4:26-27 (New International version, NIV)

The kingdom of God operates on a simple principle called seedtime and harvest, or sowing and reaping. Events in the earth are the result of seed that has been sown. Every seed that is planted has a harvest attached to it. If we could track things back in our lives, we would see that the situations we are in now are the result of seed that was sown in the past. And the seeds we are sowing now will produce a harvest for us in the future, whether good or bad. Sowing and reaping is serious business.

If we were to look at the concept of judgment, we would see that judgment is simply sowing and reaping in operation. People who sow sin, reap a harvest off the sin they sowed. People who sow obedience to God reap a harvest of blessing. We can clearly see judgment functioning this way in Genesis 3.

“Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?” The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.” Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.” Then the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” Then he said to the woman, “I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.” And to the man he said, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.” Genesis 3:11-19 (New Living Translation, NLT) emphasis mine

God did not curse the serpent or Adam and Eve. The curse came as a result of their actions, not because God was cursing them. The curse was the harvest they reaped. Look closely at the verses above. It says “BECAUSE you have done this” and “SINCE you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat…” He was explaining to them the harvest they would reap from the actions they had sown.

Words are seeds. Actions are seeds. We have to take them very seriously. What we sow creates the harvest of tomorrow- for us and others. Our seed not only affects us, but can impact other people. For example, a man who sins by molesting a child not only creates a harvest of judgment for himself, but he also sets up a harvest of devastation for the child, his wife, and others. A person who speaks negativity over her chldren is sowing toward a bad harvest that her offpsring will reap and possibly also generations to come.

We must guard our words and our actions. If we stay in the Word and in the presence of God, we will be less disposed to sow bad seed. We are responsible for the seed we sow, and we can create a good life for ourselves and others by paying attention to the law of sowing and reaping. We can live a life of blessing and create a harvest of good by being serious about our seed.