“Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.” John 4:36
Normally the work of sowing and reaping is separated by many months. Sowing naturally happens in the spring and reaping begins in the fall. Reaping is rewarding—they get all the fun. But sowing is just hard work—there is no immediate reward for working.
But Jesus says that the sower and reaper rejoice together! The point is that on that day in Samaria, the long interval between sowing and reaping was shortened. Jesus sowed in this woman’s life, and there was an abundant harvest of a whole community coming to Jesus, and it all happened within the space of an hour!
You do not know what God will do in a person’s life after you have sown the seed. Whatever comes of it, you will share the joy and the reward. The reward is not for reapers only. It is for those who did the sowing as well!
You will only see a small part of what God will bring from what you have sown in this world—your life, your testimony, your faithfulness in serving, giving, going, speaking and praying. But one day all of it will be revealed. There will come a day when all of the sowers and all of the reapers will rejoice together with Jesus over all that he has done through all of his people.
We all have different parts to play in this great work of God in the world. Some sow, others reap, but the joy and the reward of the harvest belong to both! Give yourself to any part of God’s work and you will share in the reward of the whole!
Respond to the statement: “You do not know what God will do in a person’s life after you have sown the seed.”
