For centuries the Church has been absolutely riddled with ungodly ideas concerning prosperity. Financially, the Church has been dominated by the world's system and the world's way of doing business—so much so, in fact, that we actually started preaching it as "God's economics" when God didn't have anything to do with it in the first place.

We brought the world's ways over the Body of Christ instead of taking the things of God over into the world. But all that has begun to change—and it is going to change some more. Big time!

Sowing and Reaping…It's as Old as Dirt
It must change because we've come to the end of 2,000 years since Jesus' birth into this earth. Two thousand years of gospel have been sown into this world, and now it's harvest time. You and I are the ones who will reap this harvest—a harvest like never seen before.

But to bring it in, we need to set our thinking straight. We must dig into God's principles of economics and begin applying them. And the most fundamental principle of God's economics is the principle of sowing and reaping.

To begin our study of sowing and reaping, let's read an early Old Testament account of it in Genesis 8:20-22:

And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

First, I want to point out that what we just read are only two verses after Noah got off the ark. When Noah and his family left the ark, they were it. There wasn't anyone else. Everything "in whose nostrils was the breath of life" had been wiped out by the Flood (Gen. 7:22).

But God preserved for Himself a seed—Noah and his family, all the fowl, beasts and creeping things—and he planted that seed in the earth and declared, "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest…shall not cease."

So life on earth began once again from the seed of one man.

The second point I want to make concerning the passage is in verse 22: "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."

Here, the word seedtime is a compound word. It is defined as the season for planting seeds. But if you analyze this word, particularly in the context of this passage of scripture, I believe you can concluded that this verse is saying, "As long as there is an earth, there will always be a time of—and a time of growing—and a time of harvesting."

That makes sense, doesn't it? From the time you plant a crop until the time you harvest it, there's the growing time. Right?

We could also say it this way: Seedtime plus growing time equals harvest time.

In the New Testament, Jesus followed through with this concept of seedtime and growing time when the apostles approached Him about increasing their faith. We read about it in Luke 17:5-6:

And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this mulberry tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.

The apostles came to Jesus wanting Him to increase their faith, or to make it grow. But He told them that their faith was like a seed. If they would plant it, it would grow. Why? Because faith follows the law of seedtime, growing time and harvest time.

Now I'm purposely introducing this matter of "growing time" because that's what I want us to focus on and think about. For now, though, I want to establish in our minds that the primary principle or law of economics in the kingdom of God is this law of sowing and reaping.

Let's look at a very familiar verse of scripture, Galatians 6:7, "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

We're Talking About A Kingdom Law
Based on the context of this passage, we know that the Apostle Paul is primarily talking about money. But when you examine "…whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," you realize that this is not just about money, it's a general revelation of the earth's entire operation. In fact, it's the way the kingdom of God operates.

How do we know that?

Well, back there in Genesis 8:22, God declared it as so. Then Jesus said the same thing in Mark 4:30-32.

In Galatians 6, Paul is very aware of this basic law of sowing and reaping and he goes on to apply it to spiritual matters if verse 8: "For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting."

So we see that the law of sowing and reaping is a kingdom law which, consequently, governs the earth and all natural or material matter.

Now, take this basic, yet all-encompassing law of kingdom economics and apply it to this compressed, narrow band of time in which we now live as people of the end times.

It's time to get excited, because we now live in the span of time when 6,000 years' worth of God's promises are about to explode all over this earth - and that's when things really start to get interesting.

Praise God!


Excerpt permission granted by
Eagle Mountain International Church, Inc.
aka:  Kenneth Copeland Ministries