Here’s what I see as two of the most empowering verses in the Bible.
Now, I use that word “empowering” with caution because, frankly, it sounds like a trendy new age cliche that has you focusing on empowering YOURSELF and the sky is the limit on what YOU can do, etc.. But allow me to use it nonetheless regarding the verses I’m going to read to you. They do, in fact, indicate that because of the way God has set up reality we have at our fingertips an incalculably big say in how our lives are going to play out. To take it one step further, this leverage or control given to us is so great that we can easily deceive ourselves about it and tell ourselves it’s no big deal or that it doesn’t really apply to us, or that we are exempt, and so on.
So the apostle Paul warns us about being deceived on this and then lays bare the truth.
Here it is:
Galatians 6:7-8 — “Do not be deceived. God will not be made a fool. For a person will reap what he sows, because the person who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.”
I suggest to you that what it is we are sowing is our thoughts. So if I have it right, the Apostle is referring to where we direct our thoughts — what we choose to think about. And the options come down to two.
First what he calls the “flesh.” And if we were to sum up what the Apostle writes about “the works of the flesh” in Galatians, perhaps we could put it this way: the flesh is what in us calls us to constantly think about what feels good and what in us will aggressively oppose anything that gets in our way. If that is where we direct our thoughts, the net effect will eventually be “corruption”, that is, the completely inner disintegration and decay of the self we asserted. Elsewhere, the apostle says simply, “you will die.”
The other option he calls, “the Spirit”. We also have before us the possibility of sowing thoughts to the Spirit, that is, to constantly think about what matters to the Holy Spirit. And he gives us a list that I think could be summed up in one word: love, that is, the act of acknowledging the immense preciousness to God of each person we meet, and seeking to help them in any way God guides us to. If that’s where we direct our thoughts, the net effect will be “eternal life from the Spirit.” That word “life” in the Bible seems to me to mean that in which the purposes of God are being fulfilled. So “eternal life from the Spirit” would mean that our lives become full of all that God has in mind for us. I don’t think it can get any better than that.
Now take a step back, and soak all this up for a moment. Don’t be deceived. God has given us an unbelievable prerogative in his law of sowing and reaping. Each of us has before us the possibility of seeing our lives end up in a heap of corruption or an abundance of purposeful living. And it is as near to us as where we sow our thoughts.
