Three Things - Hosea 10:12

A prophetic verse for Believers in 2013:

Another one of those great verses in the Bible

that has 3 layers of truth leading us to a Divine secret:

Hosea 10:12

Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the LORD, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you. (NKJV)

I said, 'Plant the good seeds os righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of my love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.' (NLT)

Sow righteousness, reap love. It's time to till the ready earth, it's time to dig in with God, Until he arrives with righteousness ripe for harvest. (Msg)

We are called to actively engage in 3 things – each of these are hard work. The character of Christ does not instantly and magically appear in us – it is worked into us by His grace and our surrender:

- Sow seeds of righteousness into our own lives. We can’t get holiness from anyone else – there is no shortcut to holiness – we clothe ourselves in righteousness as we lay our sinful self aside and embrace more and more of Christ’s character and nature. We are born with the Likeness of Christ, but need to daily grow in the character of Christ.

- Reap and gather the crop of God’s mercy (love) that now fills our heart. The harvest of mercy is a great reward, but Hosea tells us that we must be active in reaping this harvest. 

We might not think that if we grow in righteousness, we will also reap a harvest of mercy or love, but the Bible puts righteousness and mercy together on several occasions:

Ps. 89:14 Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Mercy and truth go before Your face.

Prov. 21:21 He who follows righteousness and mercy finds life, righteousness and honor.

Hos. 2:19 "I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me In righteousness and justice, In lovingkindness and mercy;

- Break up your fallow ground. When farmers plant crops in a field year after year, important nutrients can be depleted from the soil. Farmers overcome this by leaving a field fallow (or empty) for a year so that the balance can be restored to the soil. Another way of doing this is to carefully plant different crops in the field so that different nutrients are used and restored to the soil depending on the particular crop.

Hosea is calling us to plow the unused ground of our hearts. If a field is unplowed and is left fallow, it is unusable. The ground is hard and unable to receive the seeds of righteousness. If we are lazy in this work, our hearts will be totally useless to Gods Kingdom. Let us examine our hearts and ask the Lord to help us dig up hard heartedness, stony ground and sinfulness that creeps in like weeds.

You would think that the breaking up of the fallow, hard places of our hearts would be the first thing on this list. However, Hosea begins the list with sowing – then reaping and finally breaking up the fallow ground. Perhaps our hear hearts are made ready for more layers of Him after we have enjoyed the first harvest. The success of our sowing and reaping gives us incentive to do the harder work of breaking up the hard ground and beginning again.

As I said, fallow ground lays unused and in a state of rest. The Lord may be calling to the areas of our lives that we have laid down – giftings that we are not using, or things we have put aside out of disappointment or shame. 2013 might be the year to yield our empty fields to the Lord for greater planting, fruitfulness and harvest.

Once we have done this work, the Lord is faithful to pour out abundantly on us – the rain of His presence and the bounty of righteousness.