The mindsets of receivers
“Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness”. II Corinthians 9:10.
When God created man, He gave man a commandment to be fruitful. I believe this is right at the heart of God, since it was one of His first commandments. When we talk of being fruitful we cannot ignore the seed element. I strongly believe then, that God gave everything to man in the form of seed. Which then implies that most of the things we have are in seed form and small, and all of us can access that seed. This seed can be in the form of ideas, thoughts and even faith.
However when we look at what we call successes or significances in the world today we are simply observing the fruit (products of the seeds and the efforts of man). For example most of us have heard the folktales (ngano) from the times we were very young being recited by our grandparents and parents, but anyone who will make effort to put those folktales down can come up with a good book which can actually place that person on a national map and of course a fatter pocket.
So many ideas pop up our minds daily, but very few of us are willing to follow them up. Usually those very few are the ones who will make it in life.
We need to realise that a fruit is always a product of seed and work. However everyone desires the fruit and the seed is usually available very close to us. The challenge is usually what we are going to do with the seed in our hands.
The source of every fruit is seed. Without a seed there is no way we can talk of a fruit. The seed will then produce a fruit after work has been done on it. For example: -
■fruit of the womb (seed from male and the work of the womb)
■fruit of the ground (seed from the plants and work can be from man who sows and waters)
■fruit of your hands (seed can be idea and work of the hands)
■fruit of your tongue (seed can be an idea and work is speech)
■ fruit of your mind (Seed is idea and work of the mind thoughts)
■fruit of the spirit (the Word and work of the spirit in character development)
Every time there is a fruit realise that there was a seed and work to produce the fruit. An idea comes in mind as a seed idea, when a person spends time to think about the idea, the work of the thought process can produce a sermon, speech, lecture, books and the like which is the fruit of the mind, or computers, vehicles light bulb which is the work of the hands.
Considering the following scriptures
Isa 55:10-11 "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: , So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."
Mat 25:24-26 "Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed."
Whenever man receives seed which could be an idea or a salary he will eat, keep or sow the seed. Therefore I can group people in the following three groups:-
1.The Eater
2.The Keeper
3.The Sower.
Background
Considering Isaiah 55 the Word of God says the rain when rain comes down on earth it brings bread to the eater and seed to the sower. The Word of God is also compared to the rain and the snow when it comes down. This simply implies that when the Word of God comes to the earth it will like the rain create a watering effect on the seed that will be on man’s heart. I believe the seed could be in the form of faith, healing, prosperity and the blessings or promises of God. Using the idea of bread and seed, let us, for this discussion use our seed as the wheat seed and bread which is a product of the wheat seed. When the rain comes it will cause the wheat plant to grow and thus produce the wheat fruit which can be used for two things:-
■Crushed into flour for bread
■Dug into the ground as seed
From the above analogy you will realise that there are two people who will deal with the product of the wheat plant.
Looking at the parable of the talents, you will realise that there are also two types of servant. The first two servants who sowed the talents they were given and the other servant who kept the talent. This servant I will call the keeper, who is the third type of a person. So from the two scriptures we can come up with three mindsets that are:-
1.The Eater
2.The Keeper
3.The Sower
1.1. The Eater
This is the person who when s/ he receives the fruit will think consumption. This is the person who will spend what he gets on very small things like clothing, food and drink. If the seed comes in ideas you will see this being a person who is always bragging about how he thinks and is very knowledgeable. The qualities of an eater are:-
■The person is not worried about the future but the present.
■The person is worried about their appearance and how they are perceived by others. They want to be seen as rich people, intelligent people, anointed people and very good people.
■These are self centred people.
■They do not give but they only want to receive.
■Consumption mindset
■Finds it difficult to give but always want to receive.
■Is always seeking to be prayed for to receive miracles and prophetic words but do not work out their salvation on their own.
1.2. The Keeper
This is a person who when given a talent or seed keeps that and does not even try to use it. These are people who are talented but are afraid to go out and try out new things. They only want to live a stable and secure life. You will quickly notice the keepers by the fact that they are looking for a stable career, a house and a car. With that you are rest assured that a keeper will be happy. One other thing about keepers is that these are people who want to keep the status quo. The qualities of a keeper are as follows:-
■The person wants to keep a certain life standard.
■The person is concerned about having a stable acceptable standard in personal life, ministry and the workplace.
■The past standards and the way others are living give a measure of achievement to the keeper.
■He wants to say at the end of the day I have done an acceptable work. If given a church with 200 people maintaining the flock will satisfy the pastor, if a business is making a profit of $2 million maintaining the profit will be the keeper’s goal.
■The keeper is driven by maintaining the standards.
■The keeper is afraid of taking risks.
■He has a production mindset.
■Maintains a certain giving level (Tithe and certain level of offering) that he is not comfortable to exceed.
■In ministry this is a person who will exercise faith on for his miracles.
■You will always hear the keeper speaking of savings.
1.3. The Sower
The sower will instead of eating or keeping what he has, he will sow it. What this means is that given a bag of wheat the eater will mill it into flour and bake bread for consumption, the keeper will keep the bag of wheat as it is but the sower goes to the field to sow. From the harvest that is tonnes of wheat he will then get a portion for consumption and keep a bit for future consumption and will return to the field again to sow a bigger portion this time around. He will continue the process until he has a very large piece of land under wheat. He is always thinking of increasing his capacity to produce more. Reading “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki I got an understanding that a house is not an asset, such that given you have get an sum of amount instead of buying a house you would rather opt for investing the money or start a business and then buy a house or car using the profits. That is the sower mentality. You will notice that a sower is a person who will always be looking at developing his leadership base by teaching and impartation in ministry, concentrating as many vehicles of investment as possible in business and is a liberal giver. He gives more than the expected. A sower can be seen to be a person who
■Is focused on the future.
■Who considers delayed gratification.
■Eats from the fruit of the seed and not the seed.
■Considers his salary as seed and not for consumption.
■Focuses on business and investments.
■Has a reproduction mindset.
■Wants to understand how to move in the miraculous so that he can also pray for others.
■Is always looking for problems to solve for the betterment of others’ lives.
■The sower’s language constitutes of investments and businesses.
Conclusion
It is very important however to realise that you cannot be an outright sower but there are some eater and keeper tendencies in us all. However the level of sowing will separate the losers, the successful and the significant in every area of life.
Eating always sustains the life that is without eating life and health may suffer, but that does not warrant consuming the whole seed. Keeping brings about stability and security which is essential for each and every one of us but it is not to be the highest point of our life for we were created to sow
Sowing at the end of the day will bring forth what to eat and a stability that is needed. So we would rather spend time and resources in the field and when the harvest time arrives we will come rejoicing bringing in the sheaves. At that moment you will also have to get back to the field and sow again.
Let us meet in the field of the Divine Marketplace.
LIVING IN THE WORD
God bless you.
IN CHRIST