This past Sunday, at Calvary Assembly of God

, Pastor Coon preached about sowing to the Spirit so that you can reap a harvest in the Spirit. This comes from Galatians 6:7-9 which says,

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

Here the Apostle Paul is using the analogy of farming to give us an idea of how the spiritual life works. But, how exactly do we “sow to the Spirit”? The answer is to practice what have typically been called Spiritual Disciplines (you can call them exercises, habits, practices, etc. the idea is the same). Spiritual disciplines are the things that we can do (the seeds that we sow) that we offer to God so that he can grow them into something beyond our imagination or capability of growing on our own. We have to remember that the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) are fruit

. That is, they are a natural outgrowth. We don’t force the fruit of the Spirit to grow, we sow the right kind of seed so that the fruit will naturally grow. This is where the spiritual disciplines come in. We can’t force the fruit of patience (everyone wants that fruit!), but we can practice particular exercises, such as intentionally slowing down and allowing others to go ahead of us, that will give God a good seed and good soil to begin to grow the fruit of patience in our life.

I’ve written quite a bit about spiritual disciplines here so check it out by clicking here buy Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

.

If you want to reap a harvest of spiritual fruit, you’ve got to first learn to sow the right kind of seed.

• Elmo Visits the Fire House download

Carlos Mencia: Not for the Easily Offended dvdrip