Greetings,
I want to continue today with some further thoughts on the law of harvest. Every leader must understand the principle of harvest and they must commit their leadership to the harvest set before them in the task of their leading. I believe the law of harvest to be the highest law, the fullest boundary, and the greatest liberty of the kingdom. It is the place where the end determines a beginning. It is where life mandates relationship. Harvest is the place where hope beckons life-giving decisions. A vision of the harvest mandates the actions of the process to that harvest. It is essential that we understand the character, nature, way, power, and authority of the Author of the harvest if we are going to walk out the daily steps of the process of that harvest. God is the one who gives the harvest for He is the Creator, the Supplier, and the Finisher of all things. To attempt to walk out the steps to the harvest by any other way than the way of God will produce results that are less than and perverted from the destiny of true harvest. The law of harvest requires the service of the law of sowing and reaping. The law of harvest must be approached by accessing the divine laws of order. We are not under laws; laws are under us. They serve us as we walk in the character, nature, way, power, and authority of Christ. Those laws can be seen as principals, patterns, or values in our lives. They are the testimony of the right path to culmination and harvest. The path to harvest includes sowing, cultivating, watering, managing, inventing, creating, and many other aspects of empowering the harvest determined in our lives. False things must be removed and true things must be cultivated in order to attain the goal of the completed fruit. The end result of God’s harvest is always food for others and seed for future generations. God wants our lives to be like trees. We must branch out to become sources of fruit to be eaten by others and places that offer a touch of healing for the hope of the generations to come. I believe this is true for every harvest. Even when working a simple job or accomplishing menial tasks, the harvest must be within the environment of our endeavors in order to produce life beyond ourselves. The harvest can never be simply to pay our bills. That kind of harvest is only eaten with a bitter stomach and carries the forever disappointing news of never having enough. The harvest that God has for us involves the vision that God has for the world because of us.
We often think of harvest in terms of thousands and abundance beyond our wildest dreams, but what if our harvest is to cause just a few to think as thousands and to see themselves beyond their wildest dreams. To cause one life to become the fullest life that lives to give life to others would propagate a harvest that would ultimately change the world. Blessing produces blessing, multiplying propagates multiplying, possessing secures possessing, and the influence of life fills life with life.
The harvest of my marriage is a ripe old age with my wife that has treasures of memories, discoveries, and values attained together. But more than these the harvest of Bonnie and I together is for our children and our children’s children to have the inherited substance of family life and abundance that becomes a treasure that multiplies to the generations to come. How many dreams came to pass because of us? That is a true question of harvest. How did the character, nature, way, power, and authority of God expand in the lives of those who came out from us? That is a question of harvest.
King David understood the principles of the law of harvest. His sights were always set upon the harvest. He did not live for himself, but for the generations to come. When he was faced with trouble, he could pray a righteous prayer of rescue.
Psalms 144: 10 The One who gives salvation to kings, Who delivers David His servant from the deadly sword. 11 Rescue me and deliver me from the hand of foreigners, whose mouth speaks lying words, and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood—
Why did David pray the prayer of rescue? He didn’t pray for his own needs to be met or for his own comfort. It was for that which was beyond and because of his life that he prayed.
Psalms 144: 12 That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as pillars, sculptured in palace style; 13 That our barns may be full, supplying all kinds of produce; that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our fields; 14 That our oxen may be well laden; that there be no breaking in or going out; that there be no outcry in our streets. 15 Happy are the people who are in such a state; happy are the people whose God is the LORD!
True sons and daughters of God live to produce sons and daughters. The harvest is sons and daughters; therefore we must live to be fathers and mothers. True kingdom influencers live to export produce from barns and provisions from abundant flocks. The harvest is for barns and flocks to provide supply for the world in which we live; therefore we must live to be producers and farmers of life. True harvest is to create a better world behind us than was before us; therefore we must live to change the world in which we live.
I pray that you each get a vision for harvest and live your life to the fullest that even the harvest of pleasure would reveal the goodness and the kindness of God to the world you live in. May God inspire your dreams and your visions to be according to the law of harvest and may you be committed to the character, nature, way, power, and authority of Christ in completing the joy of life. Only being true to who He is will produce the harvest that He has for your life. May God inspire your thoughts to be thoughts of harvest for the sake of others around you and for the generations that follow you in this life.
2 Timothy 2:3-7 You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. And also if anyone competes in athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. The hardworking farmer must be first to partake of the crops. Consider what I say, and may the Lord give you understanding in all things.
Food For Thought,
Ted J. Hanson
