If not, read on, you will get the hang of it. We will say you are a farmer. And we will say, for example, that you want to grow soybeans. There is a procedure that you must adhere to in order to be successful. Skip a step and you will fail. Do it out of order and you fail.
Most of the procedures have been down pat for a long time. You may say, Great Grandpa was a farmer, Grandpa was a farmer, Dad was a farmer, and I am a farmer, and this is how we have always done it.
First, you get a piece of land. How you do that is up to you. You may choose to buy it. Or you may rent it. You may even borrow it and bring it home with you. No matter, just get land. Now, you prepare the land.
How To Prepare The Land
That involves getting the weeds, rocks, rodents, and old broken down machinery off that piece of land. Next, you plow the land up to break up the soil to get the clods out of it and make it loose. Then you fertilize it if need be, and apply herbicide to keep the weeds out.
Next, you plant the seed. Don't forget to sow the seed. That's important. Then you water the land and go back from time to time to make sure your crop is developing as expected. Finally, in due time, the harvest comes that you have been waiting for.
Notice the order I described. It will pretty much be the standard procedure. If you forget to sow the seed, you will get no harvest, no matter how well you have done the other steps. If you sow the seed before you get land, if there is any harvest, you will not be able to find it.
If you sow the seed and then plow, you will plow under your crop. Get the idea?
Now, let's translate that into a language you understand as it applies to you. You have a need, we will say for finances, in your life. The land is your life, the field you wish to receive your harvest in. Now, let's prepare the land (your life).
What does God say you have to do before you will have a harvest? You must first sow. That's the number one law. If you sow no seed, you will absolutely have no hope for the harvest. But before sowing, let's plow up your old ideas and make the soil workable.
We all have our mindsets on how God works. And most of them are wrong. Many think God answers prayer according to our need. Not necessarily so. However, God does answer prayer according to faith. And that faith is approved by God when we do things His way.
In preparing our soil, we must weed out the lies of the devil. Unbelief is weed number one. God said whatsoever we sow, we shall also reap. Seeds all reproduce after their kind. In other words, you can't sow turnips and reap carrots. And the same goes for our words.
Sowing Words
You can't sow words of faith, and words of doubt, all while hoping to get a harvest. It won't happen. For example, you may say one day, "My God shall supply all my needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." And that's good seed, and well sown.
However, the next thing that comes out of your mouth is, "Well, I can't pay my bills, I guess God isn't coming through after all." It's just like sowing weed seeds mixed with your good seeds. We all know what happens if you do that: you get a lousy harvest.
Point number two: don't dig up your seed. You can sow a seed today in your garden, and go look tomorrow, and...no harvest! So, would you go out and dig up those seeds you planted yesterday and plant new seeds? No!
You could do that 365 days a year, with perfectly good soil, perfectly good seed, and never get a harvest. Remember the process: seed, time, harvest.
And you can't sow two seeds and expect two acres of harvest. If you sow soybean seeds, you will harvest soybeans. If you sow a few soybean seeds, you will get a few plants, which will produce soybeans; however, you won't get a whole lot of them.
If you want lots of soybeans, you have to plant lots of seed. If you have a need, sow a seed. If you have a big need, sow a big seed. You may say, "My need is so great but I have no seed to sow, because I'm broke."
That's not what God says! He said in Isaiah 55:
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth the 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 to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper (in the thing) whereunto I sent it.You see, if you have a need, God says that He even supplies you with the seed to sow. But you must be sure to use that seed to sow it, not to eat it. First you sow the seed, then you have the bread to eat later.
(vv. 10-11)
I have had times I had no seed to sow, and had to specifically ask God to bring me seed to sow for my need. He did. And I sowed it, and the need was met. It comes against all natural thinking.
That's why I said you must "plow up your old ideas and make the soil workable." In the natural, if you are nearly out of money, you think the dumbest thing you can do is give away what you have. Better hold onto it.
But in the spirit, that's the smartest thing you can do. Chances are what you have isn't enough to meet your need, anyway. Jesus said in John 12:24, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."
What that means is this: if you have seed in the sack, no matter how much seed you have, or how good it is, it will never bring forth fruit until after you plant it. So why not sow that seed now instead of holding on to it, and let God increase it?
All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Jerry Baysinger was a twenty-one-and-a-half-year civilian employee of Missouri State Highway Patrol and operator of his own successful furniture repair business, when in 1993, he was diagnosed with five melanomas and liver cancer. Given a month to live, he resigned from the Patrol and went home to die. 
