It Is Time

“Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.” – Hosea 10:12

The world shifts and turns almost by the day. The only sure foundation is the Lord Himself. It is time to seek the Lord.

The message of the the prophet Hosea rings true today. This call to seek the Lord explains how to do it. Using the imagery of farming, it involves three steps of faith. 

First, break up your fallow ground. The sowing and reaping presupposes the need to first break up fallow ground. Ground that has not been cultivated over a year becomes fallow. It hardens so that sowing seed would be useless without first breaking up the hardened ground and preparing it for sowing seed. Since the preparation of the ground is for sowing righteousness, the implication is that sin with its hardening effects must be dealt with thoroughly. 

It is time to deal with sin. Pride, selfishness, bitterness, anger, lust, vice, the list could go on. Obvious sins, as well as the not so obvious sins of form and religion without life and power, which is the sin of self-dependence and self-righteousness. Whether irreligious or religious sins, all fall short of the glory of God. 

It is time to side with God against our sins. To call sin what God calls it, without making excuses and seeking to justify our stumbling. It is time to agree with God that by ignoring the provision of His Spirit, we have made a mess. 

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us (1 John 1:9). So we must come in faith that when we get honest, God cleans us up. Honesty and faith—taking the clean heart. This prepares the ground of our hearts for the needed sowing.

Second, sow to yourselves in righteousness. We cannot live righteously in the strength of our flesh, but we can sow in faith, trusting the Spirit to enable us, by imparting to us the righteous life of the indwelling Christ. When “I live, yet not I, but Christ…by faith,” then our righteous standing becomes manifest as righteous living. 

It is time to sow righteousness. It is time to trust to obey by the amazing grace of God. It is time to come with the faith of absolute surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ. He is not only the way to live righteously, He is the very righteousness we so desperately need. Faith is not a human work, faith depends on God to work. Faith makes the difference between self-righteous rags and Spirit-enabled righteous robes. 

Third, reap in mercy. The third step of faith is trusting in the mercy of our compassionate God. Honesty brings cleansing. The fallow ground is broken up. Trusting to obey reveals the faith of surrender. The readied ground is sown with seeds of faith in the facts and promises of God’s sure words. Expectation then comes by trusting in the mercy of God. Though we do not deserve the blessing of Spirit-enabled righteousness, God graces those who sow in faith with a harvest of Christ-enabled living. 

How long should this faith response delineated by the prophet be applied? Till he come and rain righteousness upon you. Seek the Lord until He deluges us with His righteous presence. Cry out for the mighty outpouring of the Spirit, which allows those who do not seek the Lord on their own to have an opportunity to be blessed by the overflow of God’s mercy.

In our constantly changing world, we must trust in our unchanging God. Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.